Sometimes the Best Way to Solve a Problem Is to Ignore It

Even the seemingly big ones.

Have you ever noticed the more attention you give to something, the more life you give it, in every way? It expands. Gets bigger, takes up more of your time, energy, and sometimes money. Dominating your existence. You can’t ignore all problems to make them go away, but many you can ignore to reduce output spent.

You can’t ignore a lump under your arm, or credit card debt mounting, or a spouse cheating. You need to schedule that doctor’s appointment, set up that debt repayment plan, or address your relationship and figure out if this is your person, someone who lies to you. Those are problems that, by ignoring them, sweeping them under the rug, only get worse. In some areas, attention is necessary.

But some things are better off if we ignore them rather than attack them by giving them much of our attention.

What we pay attention to expands. I’ve seen this play out many times in life. The law of attraction is valid.

I’ve stopped going on apps like Facebook and Anthropologie. I would waste time on Facebook scrolling or reading political news. I would waste more time on Anthropologie looking for the perfect cardigan or peasant blouse, even though I have plenty of perfect cardigans and peasant blouses — a ton. I replaced these apps with investment apps like The Motley Fool Stock Advisor, trading apps, and Stock Light, where I can set alerts based on stock prices dropping, prompting me to buy. Since the switch, most of my energy goes into saving money. As a result of my attention going to saving, my portfolio has doubled in the last two years. I have less debt because I’m shopping less for things I don’t really need.

Although Anthro comes out with yet another great peasant blouse every three months topping the last, I’ll never know…

Related posts:

An era of digital games was initiated in the late 1950s when the first video games were invented (APS News, 2008). Since then, the use of game elements has become a common design-tool, appearing in…

This publication is being born after some time of kicking around the idea of writing about midlife on Medium. The midlife niche seems to be underrepresented and underserved here. Let’s change that —…

Kamu adalah sengaja dan tidak sengaja; kesengajaan yg pernah aku harapkan dan ketidaksengajaan yg aku dapatkan. Kamu adalah tentang apa-apa yang tak pernah tersampaikan. Dari segala kata dan jeda…