Every generation believes it has its own struggles, but ours is facing a strange one. We don’t suffer from a lack of opportunity. We suffer from too much of everything at once.
For a long time, we were taught that life’s basic problem was limited resources and unlimited wants. That idea made sense when knowledge was hard to access and chances were few. Today, the opposite feels true. Information is everywhere. Tools are everywhere. Opportunities are everywhere. And yet, something feels missing.
That missing thing is attention
We live in constant noise. Our phones vibrate, screens refresh, and there is always something new demanding our eyes. Even in moments meant for rest, the mind is busy scrolling. Silence feels awkward now. Boredom feels like a problem that must be fixed immediately. But in trying to escape boredom, we’ve also escaped the space where real thinking begins.
Distraction doesn’t arrive loudly. It comes gently, disguised as comfort and entertainment. Minutes turn into hours. Days pass without depth. We feel busy, but not fulfilled. Connected, but not focused.
What makes this time so ironic is that success has never been more accessible. With the tools available today, even small effort done consistently can lead far. Yet very few people commit to that effort. Most are pulled in different directions, chasing quick pleasure instead of long progress.
This is why focus now feels rare.
Technology reflects this perfectly. Artificial intelligence can help us learn faster, understand better, and work smarter. Used well, it’s powerful. But when we rely on it too much, something subtle happens we stop struggling with ideas, and in doing so, we stop growing. Thinking, like any skill, weakens when it’s not exercised.
The problem isn’t technology. It’s how easily we hand over our effort.
In a world full of shortcuts, choosing the longer path of patience and consistency feels uncomfortable. But that discomfort is where growth lives. The people who quietly show up every day, who work without an audience, who resist constant distraction those are the ones slowly pulling ahead.
We don’t need to be exceptional to succeed today. We just need to be present. To sit with a problem a little longer. To read without checking a phone. To work without announcing it.
In an age of abundance, attention has become precious. And those who learn to protect it may discover that the real advantage was never talent or luck it was simply the ability to focus when everything else was asking them not to.
Abu Zaid Kichloo, doing bachelors from Aligarh Muslim University.