Whenever I speak to people who have no relationship to prisons or even non-profits, people want to know what the people I work with are in for? With only a few exceptions, I tell them I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. The reaction on the other end usually conveys a “but. . .” as if there are some offenses that would warrant greater concern.
Perhaps there should be, but nor do I believe a person’s past should determine their future. I am not working with people for who they were; I am working with them for who they are trying to be.
Isn’t this what we should all be doing?
Recently, I read Awaken Your Genius by Ozan Varol. I am not usually a fan of books I find in the business section of a bookshop, but this one is quite good. Genius, Ozan writes, is the discovery of the person within, largely through the pursuit of one’s own curiosity.
As I have reflected on Varol’s book, I have thought about the connection between curiosity and attention. I don’t think you can have one without the other. Curiosity requires a careful ear – to those around you as well as the inner longings of one’s self.
The trick is to train you attention on what is possible as opposed to what is in the past. Easy to say, hard to practice, and rarely done consistently.
As I have written before, I find working in prisons to be a helpful focus for noticing trends and ideas in life outside prison. The limitations of one’s point of view help you see what is otherwise lost by the many distractions which fill our day. In this case, it is listening to inmates speak of themselves for who they have been and then noticing a shift (many times like light switch) when they start to talk about themselves for who they are trying to be.
The question we ask in the program is “If you weren’t in prison, what would you be doing?” In the beginning, they will answer with all the things that got them there – drugs, fights, hanging with their people, etc. . . After a while, they start answer with the things they are looking forward to – the things that motivate them – spending time with their kids, earning a paycheck, enjoying good food, the outdoors, etc.
The other day, I asked a gentlemen who recently got out how his day was? “Great”, he said, “this morning I spent about 10 minutes just watching these bugs get dew off the grass.” I simply smiled and envied his sense of wonder.
Attention. Varol writes that our attention is our most valuable resource; more than time or energy. Perhaps that is why we use the phrase, “paying attention”. We seem to intuitively understand it has worth.
What we pay attention to will be how we measure our worth, because it is what our curiosity will chase. This is important.
What we pay attention to will be how we measure our worth, because it is what our curiosity will chase – and what questions we will ask.
Perhaps if we can pay attention to what really matters, we can ask the questions that arrive at the answers that are worth something meaningful. Not the kind about the past, but those that concern who we are trying to be.