On what are we to keep our lives focused? It’s a good question during Advent.

Dear Wormwood,
Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration, and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself. Keep up the good work.

–Not written by C.S. Lewis but extraordinarily apropos today

Or another:

Recognize what is in your circle of concern and your circle of control. By keeping focus and energy on things that are in your circle of control, you stay focused on what you can actually do and avoid needless worry about things you cannot control. This focus helps you create real momentum towards goals and reduces a sense of victimhood and blaming others for problems you can neither control nor influence. You can sometimes change or move things that are outside your control in the circles of interests/concern with proper evaluation and effort, but recognizing when you do not have control over a situation keeps you from useless worry and concern about things and people you cannot change.

Stephen Covey

This all matches the central teach of Christ which was even more soul-centered. Right after teaching that one need only have complete trust in the Father’s love and care for them, he tells them the same advice: keep your circle of interest completely encapsulated in your circle of control. Even moreso, justice means that measure you hold against others will be held against you. So stay focused the Father’s love for you and rooting out the evil that keeps you from loving all others.

1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:1-6