Such habits of mind should be put resolutely aside by one who would
hasten self-development. The attention should be fixed deliberately
upon the subject in hand, whatever it may be, and nothing should be
permitted to break the connection between that and the mind. Whether
it is a conversation or a book, or a manual task, or a problem being
silently worked out intellectually, it should have undivided attention
until the mind is ready for something else.
Perhaps few of us give to any subject the close attention which alone
can prove its own effectiveness and demonstrate the fact that there
goes with such steadily sustained attention a subtle power of
extended, or accentuated, consciousness. When ten minutes is given to
a certain subject and other thoughts are constantly intruding, so that
when the ten minutes have passed only five minutes have actually been
devoted to the subject, the result is by no means a half of what would
have been accomplished had the whole of the ten minutes been given to
uninterrupted attention. The time thus spent in wavering attention is
practically without effect. The connection between mind and subject
has not been complete. Mind and subject were, so to say, out of focus.
Attention must be sustained to the point where it becomes
concentration. The mind must be used as a sun-glass can be used. Hold
the glass between sun and paper, out of focus, for an hour and nothing
will happen.
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