As the poet W. H. Auden put it, “Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.”

Attention analyzes experience, and peripheral awareness provides the context. When one or the other doesn’t do its job, we misinterpret, overreact, and make poor decisions.

critical point that bears repeating is that attention is a limited-capacity resource—there are definite limits to the number of things we can attend to at once. We see this in everyday activities. If you’re driving, under most circumstances, you can play the radio or carry on a conversation with someone else in the car. But if you’re looking