"A person whose mind is distracted lives between the fangs of mental afflictions."
Distraction is the process of diverting the attention of an individual or group from a desired area of focus and thereby blocking or diminishing the reception of desired information. Distraction is caused by: inability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention. Distractions come f
"the things which for the most part offer themselves in life, and which, to judge from their actions, men regard as the highest good, can be reduced to these three headings: riches, honour, and sensual pleasure. With these three the mind is so distracted that it is quite incapable of thinking of any other good."
"Our foolish minds are weak; they are more than willing to be drawn—and there is so much that wants to draw us to itself. There is pleasure with its seductive power, the multiplicity with its bewildering distractions, the moment with its infatuating importance and the conceited laboriousness of busyness and the careless time-wasting of light-mindedness and the gloomy brooding of heavy-mindedness—all this will draw us away from ourselves to itself in order to deceive us."
"[Listening to podcasts while doing other things] doesnt feel like it eats away at other time, except—and this is the real key to me—it eats away at your brains time to just be your brain on its own. If youre always filling your mind with the thoughts of others, how do you know what you think about anything? This is another place where I feel concerned about this attentionness of the modern world. ... all of a sudden the podcasts are just eating up all of the mental space of my life. Im just listening to other people talk about things. ... it is eating away at chunks of time where the brain has nothing to do. And this again I feel like, goes right back into the idea of an attention-deficit disorder society."
"Just as the eye which constantly shifts its gaze, now turning to the right or to the left, now incessantly peering up and down, cannot see distinctly what lies before it, ... so too mans mind when distracted by his countless worldly cares cannot focus itself distinctly on the truth."
"It is perhaps the saddest, most hopeless thing we can say about our culture that it is a culture of distraction. “Attention deficit” is a cultural disorder, a debasement of spirit, before it is an ailment in our children to be treated with Ritalin."
"All the saints assiduously avoided distraction. Constantly, or at the very least as often as possible, they concentrated their thoughts within themselves, paying attention to every movement of the mind and heart, directing these according to the commands of the Gospels."