{"id":488,"date":"2019-02-21T17:31:35","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T00:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=488"},"modified":"2019-02-17T17:32:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:32:33","slug":"paying-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"Paying attention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[To follow The Ewellogy<\/em><\/strong>, please click on Leave a Comment<\/em><\/strong> above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: Notify me of new posts by email<\/em><\/strong>. If your comment is, “Notify me,” it won’t post publicly. If you don’t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really enjoyed writing yesterday’s blog<\/a> on Jim and his Father’s car business. When I drafted it several days in advance of publication, I sent it to Jim to make sure I had the details right. He responded: “Bob, I’m absolutely amazed! I can’t believe you remembered my exact words.” He’s being kind…it probably wasn’t his exact <\/em>words (remember, I’m a mathematician!), but it was close. And the reason for that is, I was paying attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to tell a story illustrating how to learn good interpersonal skills by watching other people, especially if some of those behaviors don’t come naturally. Here’s the story: when I was a young captain, I watched a colonel on the phone with a secretary not slam the phone down as soon as the conversation was over. Rather, he held it out, listened for her to hang up, and then he hung up.<\/em> I wouldn’t have thought of that in two lifetimes! When I shared the story with a group of missionaries in a training development course I was teaching, one asked, “How did you notice that?” My paying attention made more of an impression on her than the actual story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paying attention shouldn’t be that unusual, but I suppose it is. Go through the Gospels and see how many times you see the phrase, “As Jesus passed by he saw…” (Example, John 9.1<\/a>.) When I wrote about the locusts<\/a>, I encouraged us to be alert for lessons in all kinds of places. Also, if we’re paying attention, we might have an opportunity to help someone (e.g, Joseph in prison<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When David was hiding from Saul in a cave he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul. (Psalm 142.4) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s be among the people who pay attention!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really enjoyed writing yesterday’s blog on Jim and his Father’s car business. When I drafted it several days in advance of publication, I sent it to Jim to make sure I had the details right. He responded: “Bob, I’m absolutely amazed! I can’t believe you remembered my exact words.” He’s being kind…it probably wasn’t … Continue reading Paying attention<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-7S","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}