What are you proud that you ignored yesterday?

I have good news and better news.

Which one do you want first?

We’ll start with the good news. The good news is, the more things you ignore, the simpler your life will be.

The better news is, ignoring is a skill like anything else in this life. Refusing to take notice of or acknowledge things is an ability that can be honed.

Here’s how to do it.

Step one is reframing our understanding of the word ignore. Because it doesn’t have to be such a negatively charged idea. People often conflate the term ignore with the term ignorance, since they come from the same root word.

But there’s a difference. Ignoring refers to not paying attention to something, whereas ignorance refers to a lack of knowledge of something. The former is the exercise of choice, which often leads to peace of mind; whereas the latter can lead us down dangerous and destructive roads.

Therefore, we can frame ignoring as the positive and intentional disregard of something. Or the choice to deliberately invest our limited attentional capacities in things that are meaningful to us.

What about protecting our brains from the excesses, traps, and information disorders of the modern world?

Also, considering that our culture is awash in low quality and misleading information that hijacks our attention by evoking outrage and or anger, we might view ignoring as a boundary management technique. That frame is ideal for people in recovery programs.

Another option is to elevate positive and intentional disregard into a kind of spiritual practice. Our narrative might go, I am rejecting artificially constructed realities that are moderated by algorithmic tools. I’m trusting my resources of inner divine wisdom.

Any of these frames can shift the act of ignoring from an apathetic, dismissive, cynical practice, into a habit that’s empowering, conscious and life giving.

Once we hone our skills of ignoring all the superfluous crap out in the world, that frees up massive amounts of our bandwidth. Which means we can more deliberately invest our limited attentional capacities into endeavors, projects and activities that are most meaningful to us.

In our culture centered around fomo, the fear of missing out, there’s a sweet liberation to jomo, which is the joy of missing out.

It’s a joy because we’re not ensnared in someone else’s ego trap.

It’s a joy because we’re making empowering and life giving choices about our attention.

It’s a joy because we’re not burning calories pretending to care about all these bullshit nothingburger issues.

It’s a joy because we’re focusing on our unique mission that moves us closer to fulfillment.

It’s a joy because the more things we ignore, the simpler our life will be.

What are you proud that you ignored yesterday?