Attention is not a skill. It is a stance – a way of being in the world.

It is not something we use, but something we offer, and lately, it seems that many people have forgotten how to really offer their attention.

We live in a culture that worships speed, spectacle and stimulation. We scroll, switch and swipe, not out of freedom, but out of habit.

We are not overly curious, merely terrified of stillness.

Stillness demands we feel deeply, notice what is beneath the surface and confront the ordinary unhappiness we have been conditioned to avoid since childhood.

There is a slow, creeping violence in this disconnection, which is most obvious in the private pathologies so many of us now live with – addiction, anxiety and boredom. These are the collective symptoms of a distracted, disconnected and dissatisfied society.

While it is important to acknowledge suffering, we must not romanticise pain, making it into something that is glamorous or appealing. Nor can we afford to look away.

The real challenge of modern life is not surviving a single tragedy; it is enduring the relentless drip of days that feel empty and devoid of purpose.

There is no cure for this suffering, but we can reframe it to achieve some deeper awareness as to what it means to pay attention, be present and sit with discomfort.

Perhaps it is also recognising that there are hard limitations to personal growth and that we should just accept the comparatively uninspiring and stark reality of what it is to be adult. That is, what it means to be mature.

To suffer without spectacle.

To endure the boring parts without complaint.

To face the dull, banal obligations of life and show up anyway.

But this kind of presence is remarkable, almost radical, in a world designed for perpetual distraction.

Society suggests that happiness comes from escaping work, boredom, pain or responsibility, when it might simply be a temporary respite from our refusal to live in a way that is quiet, routine and difficult.

That is, to live honestly and authentically.

From this perspective, unhappiness is just an ordinary, pedestrian fact that does not need to be resolved, explained nor overcome. It is just what life is when we leave our interactions with the world unfiltered.

Growing-up means learning to carry this unhappiness without allowing it to crush our spirit. In doing so, we become the attentive, caring, connected and truly patient people the world desperately needs.