If you’re going to get anything done, you’ve got to decide on what it is then focus on it.<\/p>\n
Sounds obvious, and easy . . . and would be but for all the distractions, the little things that eat away at our minutes, our hours, and ultimately our lives.<\/p>\n
The good is always competing with the best.<\/p>\n
The thing about focus is that there’s a whole lot that has to be out of focus<\/em>. Like everything else!<\/p>\n Recently Anne and I watched Jiro\u00a0Dreams of Sushi<\/em>, a documentary of an 85-year old chef who’s been making sushi ever since he dropped out of high school. After a lifetime of daily repetition on one thing, he’s reached the distinction of holding the highest honor for such in the world, repeatedly.<\/p>\n The film’s producer was originally going to feature various sushi chefs but when he found Jiro Ono, his work was so far above any other he stopped there.<\/p>\n Only sushi is served in Jiro’s ten-seat restaurant in a Tokyo subway station. Reservation are made a year in advance. Japan has declared him a national treasure.<\/p>\n How has he done it? Focus. He’s performed the same routine day after day, disdaining the day off, always thinking of how to improve. As the title says, he even dreams of sushi.<\/p>\n In it all he’s come up with a strong work ethic and a philosophy of ultimate simplicity. His offering to customers looks supremely simple. One could wonder: How could this be such a high art form, a gastronomic delicacy of the highest order? But as in all true art, there’s so much more than we at first imagine.<\/p>\n About it, he says things like, \u201cYou must love your job . . . you must fall in love with your work.\u201d And, \u201cEven at my age in my work I have not reached perfection.\u201d<\/p>\n Nor is it reachable. Always striving, he says, \u201cNo one knows where the top is.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, he’s at it, at least compared to others.<\/p>\n Where did it all come from? Focus.<\/p>\n Nothing happens without it. And for great things, a great deal of it is required.<\/p>\n And a great disregard for many other things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The focus of a magnifying glass under the sun can start a fire. The focus of the human body and mind can do likewise. But much of it is required. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7342"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10698,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342\/revisions\/10698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}