The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction

by Matthew B. Crawford

The researchers’ interpretation of their results is that it isn’t willpower (as conventionally understood) that distinguishes the successful children, it is the ability to strategically allocate their attention so that their actions aren’t determined by the wrong thoughts. Self-regulation, like attention, is a resource of which we have a finite amount. Further, the two resources are intimately related. Thus, if someone is tasked with controlling her impulses for some extended period of time, her performance shortly thereafter on a task requiring attention is degraded.

The image of human excellence I would like to offer as a counterweight to freedom thus understood is that of a powerful, independent mind working at full song. Such independence is won through disciplined attention, in the kind of action that joins us to the world. And—this is important—it is precisely those constraining circumstances that provide the discipline.