Many people struggle to stay present during enjoyable moments because attention repeatedly shifts to responsibilities and worries such as work, children, aging parents, and finances. This mental tethering often functions as a way to show care, reassure oneself, or attempt control when outcomes are uncertain. The issue is not primarily digital distraction but repetitive rumination about matters that matter. Repeatedly turning over concerns can feel productive or comforting, yet it blunts enjoyment and creates a vacant outward appearance. Changing these patterns may require introspection or therapeutic support and asking whether one feels permitted to set concerns aside temporarily.
You mention feeling constantly diverted, having your attention pulled towards work and your mum, your daughter and pension. Those are important things to think about. It doesn't sound as though the problem is that your attention gets yanked around by screens, TV, social media. You describe being pulled out of the now by things you care about, not just being pulled into nothing, not-here.
Assuming this isn't a sign of a larger mental health experience, I think to some extent everybody feels the same. I remember being floored by a poem by Marie Howe, a line from it reads: My days and nights pour through me like complaints and become a story I forgot to tell. What's standing in the way? Why does it feel so hard to carpe our remaining diems?
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