When we lose our footing, or slip….  we have lost our traction.   Like a clumsy pig on a cobblestone road.  No traction.

Dis…. traction.

Yes..  …. the Art of Distraction…. which is….to draw away or divert one’s mind, or one’s attention.  To disturb or trouble greatly in mind.  To beset.

When I was out for a run this morning… I kept passing the same couple.  Three times, I did.   They distracted me… I’d have to say.  But that isn’t the point.

At the first pass-by, they were crouched down on the boardwalk.  The woman’s purse was on the ground, and the contents were scattered about.  It was apparent they had misplaced something within the contents of that bag… which was now spread over half of Charleston.  I chuckled a little, and ran on.

The next time,  both the man and the woman…were applying band-aids on their hands.  I’m not sure what event prompted this… but there they sat on a curb, in the midst of a first aid ritual.

Finally, I encountered them yet once again.  This time, they were standing in the middle of a rather large Dahlia Bush… I saw the woman pluck out the cap from a plastic water bottle from amidst the leaves.

Clearly these people were the Stumblebums of All Sightseers.

And, I would have to say that all three incidents for this couple…  were a direct cause of ….. various distractions.

Life is full of them.  Distractions that is.  Well, it is full of Stumblebum Sightseers too… but that is for another night.  Back to the matter of diversions.

I heard on the radio today that “Speech Recognition Commands” used in car navigation… is as much of a distraction as cell phones.

It is all a distraction… isn’t it?  Driving is a distraction, after all.  When we are driving a car, we can’t really get to our needlepoint, now can we?

Or when we are whiling away at the needlepoint, we have a hard time fixing the chicken and dumplings.  But if we were stirring that pot in the kitchen, we would be distracted from cleaning the lint filter on the dryer.  Yet… if we were getting the lint out of the clothes dryer, we’d have a heck of a time removing the dead mouse from the mousetrap.

And back to the needlepoint…. while you are sitting there stitching away… you notice a foul smell coming from over there.  Smells sort of like… well… dead mouse.

Or perhaps you wind up standing in the middle of a Dahlia Bush in some foreign city, with band-aids all over your hands …..

So it is all one distraction after the next.  We can try to prioritize our distractions… but really… what is the point to all of it?

Well… the long and short of that answer is one of the greatest secrets in life.  Purpose.

Finding our Purpose.  But I don’t think it means being mired down with anything…. no.   Or even to worry too much about what that purpose might be.  I mean, who knows…. maybe it is simply “all about” moving through distractions…. one to the next.

But is it such a bad thing?  As long as we are helping others through our various diversions…..  now that would be quite worthwhile, I think.

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.” – W. Dyer