## Metadata - Author: [[Johann Hari]] - Full Title: Stolen Focus - Category: #books ## Highlights - I remembered something the Spanish writer José Ortega y Gasset said: “We cannot put off living until we are ready…. Life is fired at us point-blank.” ([Location 335](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B093G9TS91&location=335)) - I was thirty-nine, and I had been working nonstop since I was twenty-one. I had taken almost no holidays. I fattened myself with information every waking hour to make myself a more productive writer, and I had started to think that the way I lived was a bit like the process where, in a factory farm, a foie gras goose is force-fed gross amounts in order to turn its liver into pâté. ([Location 365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B093G9TS91&location=365)) - “In general, we want to take the easy way out, but what makes us happy is doing the thing that’s a little bit difficult. What’s happening with our cellphones is that we put a thing in our pocket that’s with us all the time that always offers an easy thing to do, rather than the important thing.” He looked at me and smiled. “I wanted to give myself a chance at choosing something that’s more difficult.” ([Location 542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B093G9TS91&location=542)) - He said that “we have to shrink the world to fit our cognitive bandwidth.” If you go too fast, you overload your abilities, and they degrade. But when you practice moving at a speed that is compatible with human nature—and you build that into your daily life—you begin to train your attention and focus. ([Location 574](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B093G9TS91&location=574))