Thank goodness, a blank page.

My mind has just been racing through pages and pages of news and social media, and I’m exhausted and on edge. It’s not that I’m reading disturbing information - mostly they are fun articles, entertaining stories and interesting facts - but there is an undercurrent of panic that slowly rises through my limbic system, the longer I scroll.

But now, here is a blank page, and it feels like I can finally take a full breath, taste actual air, and set my compass again to the stars above me.

My life is filled with hustle. And beauty. Excitement, conflict, moments of wonder, moments of peace. At the end of many of my days, I don’t feel ready to go to bed. I feel like I want to achieve more, shine brighter, love deeper, write better. I want to do all the things I’m here to do, become everything I’m called to be.

But then I pick up my phone, and start scrolling, and start sinking. My screen is like oxygen when I’m underwater. Sinking into the deep, I take short sharp breaths of instagram, a quick shot of high-octane news updates, and tell myself that this is air.

But that small voice of truth tells me it is not air. It says "you are being entertained, but you cannot see the stars anymore."

This honestly isn’t a rant against social media. Before we ever had screens and internets, we were still finding ways to distract ourselves. At the dawn of the written word, Socrates was arguing that our memory would be weakened by reading - that words on parchment are a weak substitute for lively in-person connection. We've always had the challenge of curating the myriad inputs of our lives for meaning, not just for pleasure.

And I’m also not encouraging you to “do more” or “be better” or any of that. You are doing great. Your life is your life and you are daily discovering more about it and yourself. You're okay.

This is really about staying present, and finding the meaning. There are so many shiny distractions in life, and I find it the most difficult thing in the world to stay clear, and afloat.

I’m adding another metaphor now, but it honestly feels like this:

I am on a stage. It is open, expansive, clear. The floorboards are a rich mahogany and I can dance on them, any way I want.

I am present, acutely aware of my environment, my place in it, the players who will join me for different scenes. We will relate, shine, bond, create. We will share our unique expressions with the audience, who will resonate and respond and celebrate each act.

But then, my phone buzzes, an exciting distraction pops up, or a concern, a fear, a responsibility, a deadline, and I’m gone. My brain exits stage left, heads into the audience, and takes a seat. It stares back at my empty shell, motionless on those mahogany boards, and reaches for the popcorn.

I know not everyone responds like I do - I have friends who are amazing at instantly metabolising information, from any source, into really meaningful conversations, in real-time. But I don't do that - I just end up disengaging. Drowning in the data.

I think that’s why the panic comes. It’s a lump in my throat, a whisper in the back of my mind that says “betrayal.”

Quitting the stage is the deepest betrayal, because I am quitting myself. Instead of actively engaging with life, in all its conflict and beauty and whimsy and power, I am choosing to just be entertained by it.

“Distraction” is the antagonism to traction. Forward motion. In any story, the Antagonist is there to force the Protagonist to change, grow, make decisions.

I think when distractions come our way, we need to be really, really aware of our “traction” - Where am I heading? What do I believe? What will keep me moving towards that North Star?

Because the battle of our lives is right here, in the holding of the course, the mindful forward-motion that daily asks all of us to stay on the stage, to play our parts, to leap and shine and reflect our truth to the rest of humanity.