One path requires constant vigilance against distraction. This path also demands great awareness of many things, knowledge, and outlandish tenacity. This is the path we recognize as heroic.
The other path gets less notice, less acclaim. Those how follow this other path to focus don’t seem to try hard. These are the “naturals.” Things seem to come easy for them.
But the second path requires a lot of work, too.
The first path focus makes your eye (or eyes) hurt. You strain to place all of your concentration onto one tiny speck. You squint and squeeze your eyeball. That speck could be a planet billions of miles away or it could be a subatomic particle. Both require massive, focused concentration. The person achieves this concentration earns praise as a hero and hard worker.
The second path to focus requires learning to eliminate everything but the target. Instead of mastering concentration, you master release and surrender. You let go of everything that’s not the object of your study or the target of your arrow. You think, see, and understand less and less until, at last, there is nothing in your universe except you and the target.
Then you release the arrow. It has no choice but to strike the target, because nothing else exists.
Following the second path to focus will earn less praise for hard work and genius because it looks easy. But when the paths cross, those on the second path will triumph every time.