C.L. Harmon

We are taught from a very early age to focus. In our education, personal lives and careers we are instilled with the belief that we achieve more by focusing on what we are doing. But do we ever stop to think just what we are accomplishing with the importance we place on this focusing? The very essence of focusing is putting ourselves at the center. We must focus in order to be better. We must focus to reach our goals. We must focus to create. We must focus to succeed. At the center of all our focusing on these actions is always ourselves.

It is true that there is a need to focus on certain aspects of our lives at specific times. However, many of us allow our desire to focus to become the focus of our lives. What should only be a tool in the building of our lives, becomes the structure we are building. We have become so involved in our efforts to achieve, we ignore the needs of others. We become the center of our own attention shutting out the world around us.

We were not created to focus solely on ourselves. Our purposes are rooted in inclusion. We are designed to function as an intricate web connected to each other with each strand intentionally woven to the next. The focus on one strand alone creates nothing beyond itself. We must shift part of our attention to others so that their strands will connect with ours creating a stronger outcome for all. To be a million strands disconnected is to be broken; to be a million strands intertwined is to be the structure of life and a vision worthy of focus.