When you’re eating the food, are you actually tasting it?

I was at a seminar when I heard this, and I was taken aback.

The speaker was talking about attention. How we pay our attention, how we not pay our attention, and how we can choose things to pay attention to. When we pay attention to a goal, we will automatically utilize our 5 senses, and ultimately we will make subtle yet significant moves towards our goals.

That can’t be more true for me. I mean, this particular course that I’m taking now, which is psychology, is the one that I had aimed since I was sixteen. For 3 years. And, no kidding, sometimes I still cannot believe that I’m actually here, in this university, in this course, that I myself had chosen. No, not just chosen, but studied, reflected, researched, and more. For 3 years.

And all because I set my goals far. As a result, anything that is related to my goals during that 3 years, will catch my attention. And I don’t mean just the sweet, positive ones. Almost everything I know now, good or bad, I’ve already known it, years ahead of my peers.

Spoiler: I still don’t know all of it until today, eventhough it’s been 2 years already. In fact, upon all of my research, I still didn’t know that statistics was a big part of psychology. Like, really big. And that gave me quite a hard time learning it, since I’m definitely not a big fan of mathematics in general, lol.

But still, no regrets.

Back to the seminar, it was actually held a few weeks back. And there is another question that he asked, that is as compelling as the first one:

“Can you remember what is the last thing that you read on social media?”

Of course, he is talking about how we mindlessly scroll our timeline, without actually paying attention to what we’re looking at right in front of our eyes.

So, here’s the takeaway for today:
1. Attention is important
2. You can choose where to pay attention to

I didn’t mean to put my story to brag. In fact, I didn’t mean to put my story in the first place.
But I did, because I believe that is closest success story, to me at least, to actually prove that by only consciously directing your attention to your goals, you are on your way already to fulfil those goals.

And here is my additional view. If you don’t have specific goal in mind, you can start with what is not your goal in mind.
For example, I’m not sure if I want A. But I definitely don’t want B.
So, you can pay attention in your way in order to not bump into B-related things.

So, when you’re eating the food, are you actually tasting it?
If yes, it means, you are in the moment, and you are paying attention to the meal. As a result, the eating experience will be much more fulfilling.

If that is true for eating, can’t it be true for the more broader aspects in our lives?

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