In May, we bid goodbye to our golden retriever Daisy, who had filled our home with love and our vacuum cleaner with fur for more than 14 years. Daisy didn’t ask for much – a pat on the head, a good meal and, always, her Beary. Daisy wasn’t a material girl – she longed only for a stuffed bear that she used both as a comfort toy in her mouth and a pillow for naps. If you walked by our house, you’d likely see Daisy lying by the front door, looking out on the world with Beary beneath her head.
Our other dog, George, now has the home to himself. He has always required more space than Daisy, both literally and figuratively, since he joined our family in 2018. George likes to be seen and heard, and he has no problem with waking me up early on a weekend morning just to remind me that it’s time for breakfast. At 140 pounds, this Great Dane/German Shepherd/lab mix also makes it quite obvious when he wants to be in our vicinity, be it under the dinner table or in the middle of the living-room floor. And he is a very different consumer than Daisy was, which makes him an ideal target for holiday-season marketing.
George prefers many different soft toys, and he likes variety. He has a toy bin that he’ll often knock over just to see his options. One moment it’s his stuffed stegosaurus, another it’s his stuffed Scooby-Doo van. Some days it’s a stuffed Seattle Space Needle, and other days it’s a stuffed Dunkin’ Donuts to-go coffee. Of course, he has his bones and antlers. But mostly, he is all about options, which leads our two college-age daughters to make far more BarkBox purchases than any family really needs. Because really, who wants to disappoint George?
We live in complicated times, and we’re all figuring out our own ways to get by. George isn’t scrolling social media or reading a morning paper to figure out his place in the world. He’s just looking for some people to love and pay attention to him, some good meals and long walks, and a whole lot of toys. Needless to say, he enjoys the holidays.
I can’t relate to a desire for BarkBox toys or stuffed bears. In general, there’s only so much I can learn from George and Daisy and their priorities. But I do see a value in simplifying my world and focusing on the things I can control, then giving those items my full attention and dedication. A quarter of the way through this 21st century, I recognize that the number of voices clamoring for our attention is more than anyone would find truly healthy. The author Jenny Odell writes in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy that “if we have only so much attention to give, and only so much time on this earth, we might want to think about reinfusing our attention and our communication with the intention that both deserve.”
Odell writes about living in a “third space,” where we engage with and resist the attention economy at the same time. That might mean asking the three questions that Yale scientist and professor Laurie Santos recommends before using our phones: “What for? Why now? What else?” These three questions can help us decide where our priorities will lie before diving into the endless number of internet messages yet again.
This doesn’t mean I’m shifting from caring deeply about the world to cuddling with a stuffed stegosaurus. It just means I am considering the value of thoughtful decisions about attention and focus. “Attention — what we pay attention to and what we do not — renders our reality in a very serious sense,” Odell writes. Engaging with the world on our own terms – it feels revolutionary in a way. At least radical enough for a New Year’s resolution.
