The Noise That Hijacks Our Attention
We live in a time where the entire world enters our minds before we even finish breakfast. A scandal in New York becomes an emotional event in Nairobi. A tragedy in Beijing becomes a talking point in Addis Ababa. A celebrity meltdown in Los Angeles becomes a distraction in Lagos. Technology made the world visible, but in the process, it made our inner world porous. We now carry information that has nothing to do with us, and more importantly, nothing we can do anything about.
The irony is that almost none of these events, stories, or global dramas change the course of our lives. Except for rare moments when world leaders shift policy or global crises reshape economies, most of what reaches us across screens is noise disguised as significance. But because it’s constant and loud, people unknowingly give it the authority to shape their mood, their thoughts, and even their sense of urgency, while their own lives remain unattended.
When attention leaves the circle of influence, a person loses their grip on direction.
The Illusion of Influence
The global culture of opinion has convinced people they must care about everything. They feel obligated to respond to issues they cannot influence, argue about leaders they will never meet, and react to situations far outside their world. None of this builds skill, income, character, or future. Yet it occupies the mental space that should have belonged to their own growth.
Where Your Influence Actually Lives
Everything in life comes back to one architecture: direct your energy where your influence is real. For almost everyone, that influence lives in one place: the self. You can fully control yourself. You can partially influence a few others. You have almost no influence over the world. And yet, most people ignore the one domain they fully govern in favor of domains that drain their power.
Your life strengthens the moment your energy returns home. When your attention stops chasing global noise and returns to local action. When the inputs you consume match the outcomes you want. When your days are shaped by intention rather than reaction. You reclaim your agency by choosing carefully where your mind rests.
You Can’t Change People by Pushing Them
And yet, people invest more energy trying to fix strangers, neighbors, or colleagues than fixing themselves. That's alright if you make money by commenting on others in any way. Trying to change others almost always ends in exhaustion because people rarely shift on command. Humans barely have full control over themselves, yet attempt to reshape other people as if behavior were soft clay. They forget the principle ambition always honors: influence is a byproduct of what you become, not what you demand of others.
You grow first, and the people who ignored you begin to listen. You change your life, and your results become advice without words. You build yourself, and your presence starts influencing others more effectively than any speech. The moment you improve, your example becomes instruction. This doesn’t require pressure or persuasion, it requires evolution. Influence flows naturally from people who no longer need to impose it.
When Entertainment Becomes Escape
Entertainment, of course, has its place. A life without joy is not a life well lived. But when entertainment becomes a daily escape rather than an occasional refreshment, it signals something deeper, a life that isn’t producing enough meaning on its own. If someone constantly needs diversion to feel awake, it means the reality they have built is not giving them enough to stand on. A meaningful life reduces the need for distraction; it doesn’t amplify it.
The Attention Economy You Don’t Realize You’re Funding
There is a strange hypocrisy in how people talk about fame. They complain that “the wrong people” are famous, that low-quality voices dominate the feed, that nonsense is everywhere. What they fail to see is their own role in creating these outcomes. Attention is what prints the tickets. Every view, every share, every angry comment is a quiet vote saying, “More of this.” People claim they are tired of certain names, yet they are the ones carrying those names from screen to screen.
The world does not change through complaints about who is getting attention. It changes through people who sit down and work, who ignore the noise long enough to build something real. The problem is rarely the existence of the person, it is the audience that feeds them with their eyes and ears.
I worry far less about those becoming famous and far more about those spending their lives watching them. Many of the people being criticized are at least doing their job, making money, and playing the game they chose. Meanwhile, the audience that dislikes them continues giving them exactly what they need to grow: attention. The more time you spend reacting to who is visible, the less time you have to become someone whose work stands on its own.
Your attention is the most valuable currency you possess. Directing it toward strangers, noise, or events you cannot affect is a quiet form of self-abandonment. Directing it toward your growth, your capability, your craft, your health, your ambition, that is how your life expands. People who make themselves the agenda do not become selfish; they become clear. They stop drowning in noise and begin to build. They stop reacting to life and begin to shape it.
Make Yourself the Agenda
Let others live their lives. Let the world spin its stories. Let time teach people what you cannot. Your work is simpler and more demanding: focus on the battles you can win. Strengthen the person you are becoming. Build a life that doesn’t require escape. Grow until your results speak louder than your reactions.
What you control is enough, if you give it your full attention. Your power lives close. Bring your mind back to where it belongs.