Where are we choosing to put our focus? 

Hugging your child a few extra times before they head off to school after having to come pick them up days prior from a school shooter threat. Driving past the park you played at as a kid and seeing a homeless man sleeping there. Watching the sunset in the summertime but having to go inside because of smoke from the fires. Meanwhile, your phone buzzing constantly on the potential “TikTok ban” or the bidding on the March Madness brackets, something you can’t fathom focusing on. 

In a world where there are constant issues and problems, its clear that all of them can’t be handled at once. However, which problems should take precedence over others, or deserve the focus now? 

Many people put into perspective what life will look like ten years from now, for their kids having to grow up in a different world they grew up in. Nevertheless, with problems and changes constantly happening, there is an urge now more than ever for the world to start focusing on the issues that will matter ten years from now. 

On the other hand, the world is focused on small yet still problems such as the Tik Tok ban or what teachers should be paid, according to the current events or editorials written by students from the New York Times. Despite these, as the issues are ones to be dealt with, there are some that may take more precedence to human life concerning gun violence or climate change. 

As the issues should be resolved eventually, the world appears to be hyper focused on issues arising, no matter the importance. Hyper-fixation, the intense focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, is a common issue seen in society today according to the Oxford Specialist Tutors.

We need to learn to use hyper-fixation to our advantage in a way that it will benefit human life years from now by dealing with the issues that will affect life years from now. This causes a positive chain reaction for people to want to change more issues to come instead of continuing to push off the issues that are markedly changing people’s lives. 

The world we live in is full of pain. Pain that will presumably never go away. Unfortunately, dealing with the hand that has been dealt is the only way to move forward, however, is questionable in terms of how. Although the problems are present, it doesn’t equal it to be dealt with in the moment, but allows perspective of significance and priority as to how it can affect human life now, and years down the road.