Good Morning and Welcome Back!! I hope your long weekend was full of rest, reflection, and love. Once again, Sisyphus’ boulder is at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, this is another short week. So let’s push as hard as we can!

Since we have New Year’s coming up, I figured we’ll make this week all about beginnings, becoming, and transformation. Many philosophers have spoken to this topic, so we’re going to try and cover a wide range by looking through the lenses of our familiar favorites: William James, Aristotle, Søren Kierkegaard, Viktor Frankl, and St. Augustine. These thinkers shed amazing light on this topic, and I’m excited to share it with you all. Let’s get into it.

Today, for our main course, we’ll dive into William James’ framing of attention as the quiet force that shapes us. We’ll try to apply that to ourselves with an exercise called the Attention Ledger. To wrap it up in our Book Nook, we’ll open James’ Principles of Psychology. I know you’re hungry, so let’s dive in. Thought Breakfast is served!

Almost like an echo from a couple of weeks ago… we’re brought back to the idea of attention. This time, we’re going back to William James’ idea of attention as becoming and what that really means.

We usually think we change through big resolutions, goals, or choices. But most change happens quietly, through what we repeatedly give our attention to. Therefore, attention is not merely neutral, but something that forms identity over time.

We don’t simply use attention; we’re shaped by it. James’ psychological claim is that attention filters reality, and therefore what we notice becomes our own version of the world. James writes in Principles of Psychology, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

This means that two people can live the same year, moment by moment, but from entirely different inner lives based on what they noticed. Someone focusing on setbacks develops an identity shaped by defeat. Someone focusing on opportunity develops an identity shaped by agency. Someone focusing on resentment develops an identity shaped by grievance. Someone focusing on gratitude develops an identity shaped by sufficiency.

Now, if the coming year will form you through your attention anyway, you might as well choose what you want to become through it. That is, by taking control of what you’re attending to.

List three areas where your attention most frequently goes. It could be work, anxiety, relationships, screens, prayer, goals, distractions, etc.

For each of the three you choose, ask yourself:

Then, take this question with you today:

If attention forms the soul, where must my attention be if I want to become who I hope to be this year?

“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind; without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. The function of attention, then, is to make us aware of certain realities by turning away from others; and in doing so, it organizes the self.” - William James, The Principles of Psychology

Reality is filtered through what we choose to notice. James proves here that attention is not passive awareness, but an active participation in experience. What we attend to repeatedly doesn’t just fill time. It forms perception, habits, and eventually identity.

This phenomenon is present every day of our lives. You may watch the news too frequently and end up with an anxiety-based worldview. You may have a predisposition to social comparison, shaping a worldview of self-doubt. You may be obsessed with productivity, which then manifests as a constant restlessness.

Again, attention isn’t merely neutral. It bends our emotional and moral landscape. Distraction doesn’t just waste time, it fragments the self.

We are always in the process of becoming. Attention is the quiet engine behind that process. The question now shifts from “What am I paying attention to?” to “Who is this attention training me to be?”

Munch on that for today. Take inventory of what you focus on the most, and ask yourself how your focus on that is serving you. This way, we can go into the New Year ready to give our attention to things that will help us grow as people. As always, come back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

Consider this your wake-up call.

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast