When she was seven, my daughter Elizabeth received a magic kit for Christmas. She practiced simple tricks, and then\u2014knowing she wasn\u2019t very good yet\u2014called in her brother to be her assistant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s my distracter,\u201d she explained to Andrew and me when we sat down to watch her show. John, then five, did an excellent job. He made faces and danced around when Elizabeth struggled to find the right card or hide something in the bottom of her hat. He did such a good job of being entertaining that Elizabeth got annoyed. \u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to steal the show!\u201d she sputtered.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been marveling lately at how quickly distraction can steal the show. I have things to do, and the computer beckons. I sit down to pray, and I\u2019m suddenly thinking of what to cook for supper. It\u2019s almost as if there\u2019s no choice involved: It just happens. So I decided to spend a couple of days noticing exactly when and under what circumstances I veer off course.<\/p>\n
Every time I found myself doing something other than what I set out to do, I made a note of what I\u2019d been intending and what I did, instead. Patterns emerged. Once I could see the pattern, I could see distraction as an enthusiastic but pesky little brother whose head popped in and got in the way. And then I did<\/em> have a choice. I could laugh or get annoyed, instead of diverting my attention to his antics.<\/p>\n And knowing I had a choice made it much, much easier to make the right one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When she was seven, my daughter Elizabeth received a magic kit for Christmas. She practiced simple tricks, and then\u2014knowing she wasn\u2019t very good yet\u2014called in her brother to be her assistant. \u201cHe\u2019s my distracter,\u201d she explained to Andrew and me when we sat down to watch her show. John, then five, did an excellent job. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":26804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[296],"tags":[292,197],"ppma_author":[495],"class_list":["post-16221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devotions-for-faith-prayer","tag-daily-guideposts-devotions","tag-motivational-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n