The most valuable thing you can offer

Originally published on Jul 25, 2025 ; published on this blog on July 18, 2026

As an adult, my most valuable resource is time. And offering to spend time with people is a hassle to arrange, even though it’s worth it. But I’ve come to realize something recently, there’s an even more valuable thing to offer to someone - it’s your attention. The reason being - now, attention span is a cultivated skill, a skill that is an outcome of self discipline and grounding yourself to the present and your surroundings. At a time where you can escape everything, even your own feelings using your phone. Bringing yourself back to reality is a hard one, its sad, disappointing and deteriorating sometimes. And to have the determination to turn up to reality, enough to not dissociate every time we’re in a social setting feels like a herculean task for some people. I was “some people”. I lived on the internet most of my life. There was joy in logging onto chat sites, youtube channels and barbie dress up games. Why would I willingly choose that over my real life - where I was getting bullied; parents fighting with each other; talking to me like I was unwanted or worse - listen to my own feelings of doubt, shame and hurt. I did this so much to the point where i forgot my dreams rather - didn’t believe I could achieve them anymore, that they were out of my reach and I didn’t deserve to be in those places. So I refused to turn up for myself. To eat, to get a bath or do the most enjoyable activity of all - study. For years, I spent it trying to find anyone that would be willing to talk to a 13 year old girl. My attention constantly split between hard work or chasing the possibility of being wanted by anyone that wanted to be around me. For a teenager’s brain, it’s very obvious. For a decade, my mind was used to being split between things, almost never being able to do one thing at once. A decade’s worth of habit is a long one to break. But I did, I have, somewhat. What’s on the other side of this? So much more than the internet can ever offer.

Internet gives you a lot of information, a click away (most of the time, sometimes you need internet archive) but paying attention to reality allows you to use that information to connect things in your mind. And those connections that you make allows you to exercise your being, you feel yourself being alive when those connections happen. Now this is somewhat day dreaming, somewhat not being present all that much, it still requires you to be lost in your own mind. But there’s something even more magical that happens when you pay attention to people and they pay attention to you. You make a space between the two of you, a space only you two can feel, both gently adding things to this space. A pretty vase of observation, a beautiful flower of connection and the watering of reassurance that you’re listening, you care, you’re there to help if needed. Or perhaps a table of firm beliefs that you both share. Sometimes, you take the other person’s vase and paint it blue, take one of the dead flowers to fertilise your own mind, the scent of which lingers their presence. And you can spend hours doing that - decorating the place of your sharing, allowing the other person to add whatever they’d like to. And sometimes there are people so deprived of attention that they almost look to you to ask “can I put my painting here, would that be ok?” and you reassure them that this space is as much theirs as yours, or maybe even give away some of the equity in that conversation & space to them so they get more comfortable. And nothing is more joyous than that. The importance of having this - where your thoughts get vocalised, your ideas evolve and your being gets acknowledged is vital. This is truly what you miss when you don’t offer your attention to people. That magical space where you gently give and receive doesn’t get the chance to be made.

And it’s obvious what happens in the opposite case, when you have to constantly beg for someone’s attention, your inner self slowly chips away “maybe I don’t deserve to be heard”, “maybe I am not as important”, “maybe I’m just boring”.

I didn’t get here easily either. I came across people who forgot their phones in my presence without being asked, they were there, they heard, added to my ideas and felt my emotions with me. Time and time and time again. It took a long time before I realised why I felt so good being around them. They put in the time to make plans, let plans get derailed, paid attention to things happening around, that deserved a detour and took me along their ride. And I felt seen, heard and like I mattered. Slowly I started reciprocating and saw my mood lift the lesser I checked my phone.

There’s a lot of other things that I did too, that allowed me to get here - going to therapy so listening to my thoughts wasn’t scary, constantly taking care of my surroundings, learning to be progressively vulnerable with new people, paying attention to my surroundings and gently taking care of them, working out and moving my body, giving meditation another shot, checking in on friends and probably many more smaller activities. And it has infinitely changed my life for the better. For the first time ever, I feel less lonely. Even when I’m alone I don’t have this piercing, burdening weight of loneliness. It feels light and important to be alone and it feels light and important to be around friends. I remember how lonely I felt when I was alone and even lonelier around other people. I almost cannot believe that I have found myself out of there.

In the midst of loneliness I’ve also cultivated a habit of observing things. Poetically, by things I mean rustling of leaves, the birds that come to my balcony tree and the spider in my bathroom. The more you observe things, the more you start creating your own version of how things work, visually mapping every causation and effect which constructs a mechanics of whatever it is that you are observing. And in that observation, I’ve felt the most like myself. It doesn’t ask much of me, the conscious mind goes in and out of attention, taking notes and coming back every time its ready to take more. In losing yourself in pursuit of observation, something peculiar comes about - ideas. Ideas to use the mechanics of whatever you’re observing to create something that does not exist yet. It works in your mind and you will it into existence by moulding, shaping and failing. By failing you understand more of its mechanics accurately, changing & refining the mental image of how it works. I’ve realised this is the sole purpose of my existence. And I don’t merely observe things to mould them into whatever I want it to be - no, no, that would be far too hollow. To observe is to acknowledge being alive, to observe is to realise there is no barrier between the self and this world we live in, to observe is to feel the world that we’ve been gifted to enjoy in close proximity, bridging the gap the mind creates when you dissociate from your reality for a long time. Playing god to mould the entities I observe is only a happy coincidence that occurs when the mind feels like it. And the body can’t help but help put in the labour to bring the creation into real life.

This might all sound like jargon, cult-like meditation voodoo. But give it a shot, sit somewhere. In front of your living room wall, a park, hell even in your own bedroom. Let thoughts fill up your mind, observe them as they come. Do it until there aren’t many thoughts, willingly zone out into yourself. Doing this in nature is far more enjoyable, I personally like observing leaves of a tree - some brown, some bright green, the way the branches bend to the city built around them. It’s lovely. Give your mind a space to be in conversation with you, shutting it off is a very unkind thing to do to a wonderful mind that is eager to tell you things - good things, bad things, funny things, marvelously varied things. I wish you and your mind a happy reconciliation, my reader friend. Goodluck.

Love,
Santa