Multitasking

By September, realization hit hard; a COVID winter was coming. I started looking for additional resources to get me though and happened upon a NPR review of the book The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers, by Eric Weiner. It was time to revisit my college Philosophy 101 course to explore/understand big ticket items such as reality, knowledge, existence, love, morality, and faith. Fortunately, the author is more humorous and articulate than my philosophy Prof. Dr. Snooze.

Each of the fourteen chapters is devoted to a particular philosopher, including Rousseau, Confucius, Socrates, Weil, and Thoreau. Their perspectives help to examine ideas that can lead to more examined, attentive, generous lives. For example, philosopher Simone Weil believes that “only when we give someone our attention, fully and with no expectation of reward, are we engaged in the rarest and purest generosity”. Ultimately, another name for attention at its most intense and generous is love.

Attentiveness is not my strong suit, which I easily excuse by my need to get so much done all the time. My mindless, inattentive multitasking always escalates during mealtime when the news is on! We know how Jesus felt about multitasking when he reprimanded Martha, as follows:

³⁸As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
⁴¹“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-41)

So what’s a busy person to do? Be attentive, make dinner, keep up with the news, recycle, do the wash, listen to your aged parent, children or spouse, and/or _____ (fill in the space)? Sorting through my personal dilemma, I turned to Ecclesiastes, chapter 3. Reminded that there is a time for everything under heaven, I realized: There is a time for attentiveness and a time to serve dinner.

Prayer: Help me to be more attentive to the people in my life and the strangers I will meet along the way.

-Moira Lataille