One of my students wrote a post on our class blog that reminded me why paying attention can change everything.

She said that the 5 minutes of class for which she was fully conscious (thanks) led her to reconnect with two friends she otherwise would have given up on. That’s one friendship rebuilt per 2.5 minutes of paying attention. She writes: “What would have happened if I
hadn’t attended class at all? I shudder to that thought.“

This line of thinking makes my head explode with infinite configurations of could’ves-would’ves. What if I hadn’t overhead that there was an advertising club in my high school? Then I would not have connected with a video company I went on to work for (on and off) for six years. I almost certainly wouldn’t be teaching video research to middle school kids now. I probably wouldn’t have met my boyfriend (since we met because of my camera), and we wouldn’t have two fuzzy little cats and an apartment together.

What if I didn’t look at the flyer someone handed me about a student leadership retreat at Hunter? Then I would not be teaching first year seminar (because the idea came up in one of our conversations), and I wouldn’t be writing this post right now.

So much of life stems from just a handful of occurances.

Obviously, we can’t pay attention to everything all the time, but imagine if we all paid just a little more attention. Maybe a few extra minutes would lead you to that one new idea, new relationship, or new opportunity that will determine where you’ll be 10 years from now.

I hope you’ve been paying attention to this blog post