Stoic Practices: Attention to the Present Moment
There was a moment during my junior year of high school when everything seemed to stand still. Our concert band had made it to the state competition. Of the two pieces we had prepared, the judges chose the final two movements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. I played the tuba, sixteen or seventeen, and full of nerves. But when Mr. Deal lifted his baton, something rare happened. Every note seemed to fall into place. We were perfectly balanced, thirty or more of us playing as one body, one breath.
When the piece ended, there was a strange quiet before the applause, as if everyone knew they had just been part of something that did not belong entirely to them. Later, several of us described the same uncanny feeling. It was as though we were all tuned to the same frequency, not just musically but mentally. That is what attention can do. It binds people together in a single moment that feels outside of time.
I did not know then that the Stoics had a word for this kind of awareness. Prosoche: the discipline of attention. For them, attention was not a technique to improve focus or productivity but a moral act. Marcus Aurelius called the present moment “the only thing that truly belongs to us.” Seneca wrote that life is long enough if we use it well. They both warned against drifting, against missing life because we were somewhere else in our heads.
These days, attention looks very different. I often go to The Portico in downtown Tampa, another campus of my church, Hyde Park United Methodist. It is part café, and part mission. People come for coffee or a sandwich, for recovery, or for help finding their footing again. The staff are often folks rebuilding their lives after addiction or prison.
I enjoy sitting there on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with my tablet, doing some writing or journaling. Sometimes I just want to keep to myself, but there are mornings when someone walks in needing more than caffeine. Recently, a man came in who had just been released from prison. The staff were away or busy, so someone waved him toward me, probably because they knew I volunteered with the church. He looked lost. His eyes filled with tears as he told me he had nowhere to go.
I folded my tablet closed so he could see that he had my full attention. I offered him coffee, on me, and we sat while he told me his story. Nothing heroic happened. When staff returned, I helped connect him with the right people, but the only real thing I gave was presence. Just listening.
I have learned that when your attention is genuine, people sense it. They stop acting. They let you see them. And, selfishly, I always leave lighter, not heavier. Presence is not just something we give; it is something that restores us.
Marcus would have understood that. He believed attention to others was a way of honoring our shared humanity. Stoicism is not about cold detachment; it is about seeing clearly and responding wisely. When I listen without rushing to speak, I feel closer to that ideal. It has been a long road, though. Anyone who knows me knows I love to talk, and I often find myself waiting for my turn to tell my story instead of listening to theirs. The Stoics, and a bit of aging, have helped me learn the quiet work of actually listening.
But attention does not come naturally anymore. We live in an age of interruption. The average American checks their phone hundreds of times a day. According to researchers at the University of California, Irvine, office workers switch tasks every forty-seven seconds on average. Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows, argues that the internet is reshaping our brains, training us to skim rather than engage in sustained thought. Johann Hari refers to this as “stolen focus,” a collective attention deficit created by the modern environment itself.
We like to think we are multitasking, but most of the time, we are simply scattering ourselves. Psychologists call it “continuous partial attention.” The Stoics would call it a failure of prosoche, a refusal to inhabit the moment we are in. Seneca warned that “to be everywhere is to be nowhere.” I suspect he would have a few words to say about push notifications.
Working from home makes it worse. Most of my meetings are on Teams or Zoom. They are often recorded, which gives the illusion that I can catch up later. I will be half-listening, half-scanning another window, until someone says my name and I have to pretend there was a technical glitch. It is not malicious; it is habit, and as the song says, “I’m not the only one…” I rely on the recording, but it is not the same. When you are not fully present, you do not just miss words. You miss tone, nuance, and connection.
Attention is not only about focus; it is about care. And when we outsource it to machines, something human quietly slips away.
That realization is one reason I returned to journaling. I had done it off and on since college, but reading Marcus Aurelius and Seneca pulled me back with a new intention. The Stoics saw reflection as a way to train awareness, to slow down and notice what is actually happening. Seneca recommended ending each day by asking: What did I do well? What did I do poorly? What might I do differently tomorrow?
Modern psychology backs this up. Studies on reflective writing show that it sharpens recall, reduces anxiety, and strengthens empathy. For me, it has become a kind of daily inventory of attention. Throughout the day, I find myself noticing small details, a phrase someone used or a feeling that passed too quickly, because I know I will be sitting down to write about it later. It is not forced mindfulness. It is more like keeping a record of gratitude and curiosity.
When I write, I am not just recording events; I am also creating a narrative. I am remembering what it felt like to be in those moments. Even interactions that seemed routine, a brief chat at a café or coffee shop, or a neighbor waving on my morning walk, often reveal meaning in hindsight. The act of writing pulls the day back into focus.
I suppose it is fitting that some of this journaling happens with the help of AI. The Stoics did not have digital companions, but they did have philosophical friends, people they trusted to hold up a mirror to their thoughts. Writing with AI has become something like that for me, a conversation partner who keeps me honest, patient, and occasionally humbled. It reminds me that attention is not a solitary act. It is relational.
Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “Don’t waste the rest of your life worrying about others—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing what’s in your power.” To him, that “power” was not authority or control. It was presence, the power to meet each moment with clarity and compassion.
In a sense, that is what my band experienced that long-ago day: a shared clarity. We were not trying to think about how well we were playing; we were just playing. The same thing happens, in a humbler way, when I sit across from someone in a meeting or at a coffee shop. If I stop rehearsing my next sentence, if I simply pay attention, something opens up, sometimes in them, sometimes in me.
Modern research calls this “flow.” Psychologists describe it as a state where action and awareness merge, where time seems to fall away. It is not limited to musicians or athletes; it can happen in a conversation, in writing, or even while walking a familiar route and suddenly noticing the way light hits the water.
The Stoics did not use that term, but they were after the same thing: to be fully engaged in the work of living, moment by moment. Epictetus said, “If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless and stupid about extraneous matters.” That line always makes me smile. It is a warning against trying to know everything at once. Better to know the moment you are in.
I sometimes think attention is the purest form of love. It asks for nothing but presence. The person on the other end, whether a friend, a stranger, or even yourself, feels seen. And that is the beginning of healing, understanding, even joy.
We do not need to turn attention into another form of self-improvement. The Stoics were not chasing serenity for its own sake; they were chasing virtue. To attend to the moment is to act justly toward reality, to stop insisting it be other than it is.
When I leave The Portico after a morning of writing, I often feel lighter. I might have had only a few small interactions, but I have been there for them. That is enough. Those moments are the quiet pulse of a life lived.
Marcus warned that “you could leave life right now.” Not as a threat, but as a reminder: the only time you can live well is now. We have all heard the phrase “be present,” but the Stoics give it weight. Presence is not a mood; it is a discipline.
That may be why that day with the band still lingers all these years later. It was not perfection that made it memorable. It was an awareness, as thirty young musicians, for a few minutes, inhabited the same moment completely. That is the kind of attention I want to carry forward, not dramatic or mystical, just awake.
Because if the modern world has taught us anything, it is how easy it is to drift. The Stoics remind us how simple it is to return.
All it takes is noticing where you are and staying there long enough to belong.
