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The Fifth Lesson: The Cultivation of Attention.563
Dr. Beattie, speaking of this subject, tells us “It is a matter of no small
importance that we acquire the habit of doing only one thing at a time; by
which I mean that while attending to any one object, our thoughts ought not
to wander to another.” And Granville adds, “A frequent cause of failure in the
faculty of Attention is striving to think of more than one thing at a time.” And
Kay quotes, approvingly, a writer who says: “She did things easily, because
she attended to them in the doing. When she made bread, she thought of
the bread, and not of the fashion of her next dress, or of her partner at the
last dance.” Lord Chesterfield said, “There is time enough for everything in
the course of the day, if you do but one thing at a time; but there is not time
enough in the year if you try to do two things at a time.”
To attain the best results one should practice concentrating upon the task
before him, shutting out, so far as possible, every other idea or thought.
One should even forget self—personality—in such eases, as there is nothing
more destructive of good thinking than to allow morbid self-consciousness
to intrude. One does best when he “forgets himself” in his work, and sinks
his personality in the creative work. The “earnest” man or woman is the
one who sinks personality in the desired result, or performance of the task
undertaken. The actor, or preacher, or orator, or writer, must lose sight of
himself to get the best results. Keep the Attention fixed on the thing before
you, and let the self take care of itself.
In connection with the above, we may relate an anecdote of Whateley
that may be interesting in connection with the consideration of this subject
of “losing one’s self” in the task. He was asked for a recipe for “bashfulness,”
and replied that the person was bashful simply because he was thinking of
himself and the impression he was making. His recipe was that the young
man should think of others—of the pleasure he could give them—and in
that way he would forget all about himself. The prescription is said to have
effected the cure. The same authority has written, “Let both the extemporary
speaker, and the reader of his own compositions, study to avoid as far as
possible all thoughts of self, earnestly fixing the mind on the matter of what