Bandwidth

If it doesn’t consume much of our time, it will still consume our attention. 

However minute, however significant, whatever the aggregate amount of mental energy spent must be less than our total mental capacity. Whether they are larger questions in life—to engage with social media, to take on a side hustle or a second job, to get into a relationship—or something as insignificant as worrying about what brand of soap we use, what we will eat for dinner today, or what we will wear to a party, almost everything in our lives has a cascading effect that impacts us far more than we might presume. 

Regardless of how resilient we think we are, for everyone there is an absolute limit, and not only do we have to avoid reaching that absolute limit to circumvent the possibility of mental breakdown, but we must be perhaps even more mindful of the complex and dynamic interplay between all that preoccupies us. Not only is it that the quality of our work—what we originally set out to do in this world—can certainly degrade depending on what clutters our information space and our perception, but it is also that the things that we decide belong within the realm of our consciousness can shape our character, whether for better or for worse. Indeed, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations