How much of life is mundane?

The human mind wanders all over the place. At least, mine does. Even when I am highly focused on something – serving customers in my restaurant or writing this blog, for instance – my mind still wanders around to mundane matters. Where are my car keys? Did I forgot to start the dishwasher? I need to wash my car. I wonder if I have any new email? Who will win the election? What is the ultimate goal of a country’s healthcare system? I gotta stop late night snacking because I would like to lose five pounds. I wonder how my dad is doing? 

I am pretty certain that everybody has a wandering mind, to some extent.

Despite this, though, we tend to portray one another as focused, single issue people. Veterans are gallant men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our country. Police are dedicated to serving the community. ISIL terrorists are dedicated to mayhem and killing. I suspect even the most zealous, religiously motivated terrorists in the world occasionally still wind up wondering what’s for supper?

Is this what separates really high achievers from the rest of us? Do the Nigel Wright’s of the world have much higher focus that average? A friend of mine attended grades 5 to 8 with Nigel. He showed up in grade five with a briefcase. So, um, it seems that he is a little more focused a lot earlier in life than I was.

I have been pondering mundaneness a lot lately. That is, when I haven’t been distracted by wondering where I left my gym bag. Mostly because I am on the cusp of starting a Master of Journalism at Carleton University. This will require a lot of focus on my part in the coming year and I worry that I will be too distracted by all sort of mundane minutiae of life. 

Hey look! A squirrel!