The Last Scarce Resource: Your Attention
How We Lost Our Greatest Human Gift (And How to Get It Back)
Hi, I’m Claudia, and I help you to face a hurried world with greater confidence in your “Power of Slow”.
You are reading the sub-section SlowPOWER of the publication Un-Rush-The Power of Slow where I give you insights on the absurdity of rushing and impulses on how slowing down benefits your life and work.
Don’t be shy to share it with fellow rebels against the hurry culture and click the❤️ button, so more people can discover it on Substack. Thank you!
The Last Scarce Resource: Your Attention
How We Lost Our Greatest Human Gift (And How to Get It Back)
Scarce resources are valuable.
When we talk about scarce resources, we think about raw materials and we usually imply that its current use is unsustainable in the long-term. Raw materials, water, oil, minerals, and many more exist by the law of nature but are prone to misuse and misallocation by those who exploit such resources. Think humans.
Historically, our relationship with scarce resources has followed a predictable pattern:
Initially, we treated the resource as unlimited and consumed it freely.
As scarcity becomes apparent, we develop systems to measure, value, and conserve it.
Eventually, we create cultural norms and technologies around the sustainable management of scarce resources.
Take oil. Once treated as an infinite resource, we now meticulously track its consumption, develop alternatives, and have entire geopolitical strategies built around securing access to it. But then there are also scarce invisible resources such as TIME. Time is limited and with the invention of clocks, calendars, and schedules we attempt to manage this invisible resource that we can never get back.
Now let’s look at the precious resource ATTENTION
Unlike other resources, our capacity to GIVE ATTENTION has unique limitations. You can't store it for later use like money or schedule it like time. It exists only in the present moment. This makes it arguably our most precious resource - once spent, it's gone forever. We can't "save up" attention on Monday to have extra on Friday or borrow someone else's attention to add to our own. And when we mindlessly scroll through social media, we're often getting a poor return on our investment.
Paying attention is a scarce resource and it has become particularly crucial in our current world. We need to consciously manage our attention in a world designed to deplete it. If we don’t pay attention this invisible resource is following the same trajectory as the other scarce resources. We're in a pivotal moment in time where we're transitioning from the initial phase, treating attention as unlimited, to the second phase in which we are recognizing the scarcity and value of attention.
Just as oil management helped people visualize and regulate oil production and supply, new tools like screen time reports or meditation are helping us quantify our attention expenditure. The key difference? The depletion of attention is happening at an accelerated pace, and the systems depleting it are specifically engineered to be addictive. Unlike quantifiable oil prices, attention depletion happens subtly. We often don't realize our attention reserves are being drained until they're critically low. Burnout, low concentration, broken relationships, and health issues are our return on mis-investment.
Paying Attention encompasses 3 major elements
With all the multiple crises and conflicts of our time, it's hard to know where to look - or perhaps not to look. So where should we focus our attention in all this overwhelm? In a world that constantly floods us with information and where distraction is just a click away, it is difficult to stay focused on one thing.
Let’s take a closer look at what paying attention means which will help you to better manage your human gift of paying attention.
Paying Attention encompasses 3 major elements that are vital:
Focusing
Caring
Having Situational Awareness
They are vital because:
Attention is a way of being alive to the world
Attention gives you back control over your time
Paying Attention is the only thing that guarantees insight
FOCUS
Focus by paying attention to what is in front of you.
It means you are concentrated, immersed, absorbed, and committed.
How to get it back:
You consciously choose and decide for the selected
Say NO to the unimportant which leaves you room to focus on the important
Focus on the essentials, leaving out the rest
Work, do, create with intention
CARE
Caring is giving your attention to your loved ones, yourself, and others.
It means that you care, you value and appreciate, and you are considerate and thoughtful.
How to get it back:
Care for people at work or for people in daily life
Take time to listen, really paying attention to what they have to say
Embrace that caring means investing time
By paying attention to yourself you build self-awareness regarding your values and vision
Care for your own well-being so you are able to give attention to others, care for them
Give your attention and it will connect you with others
Remember that giving your attention and care shows that the other person is important to you
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
Paying Attention is perceiving what is happening around you.
It means that you are alert, observant, awake, perceptive, and interconnected.
How to get it back:
Look at the bigger picture and you are able to connect the dots
Notice what others don’t see, observe, realize, overlook or miss
Perceive and pick up on subtle clues and details that help and are useful
Be aware of what is around you, it makes you curious and fascinated about input, new things, important information, different perspectives
Pay attention to what happens around you and train your situational awareness – it can save your life
Giving Attention is an investment in your life
Think of attention as an investment in yourself and those around you. Every day, you are making choices about where you invest your limited resource. When we give your full attention to a conversation, really listening, you are investing in your relationships. When you focus deeply on learning, you are investing in your personal growth. When you exercise situational awareness, you notice things others overlook and it might save your butt by not getting run over.
Since attention is scarce and can't be stored, the quality of your investment decisions becomes even more crucial. Every moment you choose to pay attention to something or someone, you're simultaneously choosing not to pay attention to countless and useless other things.
The ability to pay attention - to truly focus, care, and maintain awareness - has become a rare and valuable skill in our distraction-rich, complex and uprooting world. It's not just about productivity; it's about reclaiming our capacity for deep human connection, understanding, and presence.
Imagine your attention as a running tap that can't be turned off. The water (your attention) must flow somewhere - you can direct it, but you can't store it for later. Every moment, you're choosing where to let that water flow. Will it nurture the garden of your relationships? Or disappear down the drain of mindless scrolling?
Where are you currently investing your attention, and what returns are you getting?
Thanks for the essay, Claudia. It's such an important topic to shine a light on right now and wake people up to the fact that they have control over what they consume.
Thank you Claudia, great writing and explanation.