Creativity Clinic 19: The value of paying attention in an attention scarce world!

The world is a rough place at the moment. One easy way we can improve it for ourselves and those around us is by upping the quality of our interactions with people. If we really listen, if we really read emails, if we really look for the meaning in the messages we receive from the people who communicate with us, we will set ourselves apart from most others. The trend is towards not reading long messages, not clicking links, missing details, not bothering to reply, and imagining we'll just fill in the blanks later if we need to. It creates a global paucity of interactions, with everyone imagining they've got the measure of the next person, and don't need to bother listening anymore. Give quality time and you'll get quality time back.