The practical effect of this teaching ought to be highly encouraging, for we have met with hundreds of cases in which men and women have wrongly accused themselves of lack of concentration. They had been trying to fix the attention on one thing, and because they had failed they became exceedingly depressed. What they lacked was control. Attention wandered off into numerous by-paths.
Causes of Mind Wandering
What are the causes of these conditions? They may be classified as follows:
- Physical causes, due to nervous illness of various kinds; the effects of shock or accident; excitable temperament; restlessness.
- Mental causes, due to a profusion of interests; a mind that works very rapidly; natural indolence ; lack of interest; the habit of drifting.
- Economic causes, due to a monotony of daily work; highly specialized duties narrowing the mental sphere.
Advantages of Concentration
The first and most obvious advantage of controlled attention is that the whole of the mental functions are hereby developed to the limit of their capacity. The act of close attention means that whilst you examine one object, or one idea, you are unconsciously exercising your memory, recalling similar objects or ideas. You are using your imagination in conceiving improvement by change. You are all the time comparing and contrasting, testing theories and accepting or rejecting them.
There is no merit in concentration itself; its value lies in the opportunity it gives to the functioning of our mental powers as a whole. There is no illumination in it per se, but even a searchlight cannot throw its beams into the sky without the help of the mechanism which makes light, and focus possible, and that is what concentration does for the mind.
The Morals of Concentration
It has been said that the mind of man is a great arena of conflict in which thoughts struggle together for supremacy and where the fittest alone survive. There is more than a mere figure of speech in this view. Not only do the more interesting and the most forceful ideas survive to become the glory and the sadness of memory, but certain ideas persist in spite of ourselves and against our best interests; at least for a time. There are people whose minds are plagued with undesirable thoughts, and, usually, this condition is dealt with by the moralist. But it is just as much a question for the psychologist.
How to Develop Concentration
Active attention springs from interest, as a rule; that is, the emotional element is the compelling power. But there is also an interest which is the offspring of attention. There are many middle aged men who have acquired a liking for golf; at first they had no interest in the game, and simply went round the links in order to fulfill a promise to the doctor. But slowly interest began to grow, and with it came attention and effort. Later, this middle aged person who grumblingly, and often angrily, walked after the little white ball, is keen on winning a prize. Although in the first place attention created interest, it is now interest which sustains attention; and it may be written down as a law that the more interest you have, the greater will be your power of concentration.
