Pay attention to what you pay attention to

One of my favorite tweets of all time is from Amy Krouse Rosenthal:

for anyone trying to discern what to do w/ their life: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO. that's pretty much all the info u need.

The whole tweet is a message about how to find a career or an ultimate aim, depending on how you understand "what to do with their life." It values what you are drawn to... not what you think you ought to do. It honors the wisdom of your mind.

The all-caps core of the tweet is interesting in different way. It's a simple, koan-like, almost-palindrome. Divorced from the "for anyone trying to discern what to do with their life," it becomes a warning to be vigilant because we aren't just eyeballs, taking all in; we are also heads that turn those eyeballs in a certain direction.

It reminds me of Henry David Thoreau in "Life Without Principle," where he says that we can so easily be brought low by the trivia of the day. Reading the news more than once a week is unneeded distraction, a sullying of the mind. He compares his mind to a waterway, containing the ideas and news we dump in it:

If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

These inter-related thoughts:  we are what we let in... so pay attention to what we are drawn to, what we dwell on... are similar to what High School Principal David Geurin (@davidgeurin) tweeted recently:

Six big influences on who you will become...1. What you watch2. What you read3. What you listen to4. Who you spend your time with5. The things you say to yourself6. The thoughts you choose to accept

And this reminds me of Tim Ferriss's thought (or at least a thought he shares often on his podcast) that we will become as successful as the average of our five closest friends.  That says Geurin's #4.