Time & Perspective Quote by Kathy Mattea

Kathy Mattea’s line lands like a quiet corrective to the modern attention economy: the real theft isn’t what happens to us, it’s what we do to ourselves when we mis-spend our focus. “We rob ourselves” makes distraction feel less like a bad habit and more like a moral injury - self-inflicted, gradual, almost invisible. She doesn’t blame bosses, phones, or politics (though they’re lurking in the background); she names the more uncomfortable culprit: our own fixation on “the wrong stuff,” the petty anxieties and status-chasing that masquerade as priorities.

Mattea’s musician’s instinct shows in the phrasing. “Get into the moment” echoes performance logic: you can’t sing yesterday’s note or nail tomorrow’s chorus. Presence isn’t a wellness poster, it’s technique. The pivot in the second sentence is where the subtext sharpens: “deal with what is” rejects the fantasy that clarity comes before action. It suggests adulthood as improvisation - responding to the actual room, the actual feeling, the actual conflict - instead of rehearsing alternate versions of yourself.

Calling it “the real opportunity” reframes mindfulness as agency. Not escape, not serenity, but a chance to choose well in real time. In a culture trained to treat attention as a commodity to be harvested, Mattea quietly insists it’s a power to be guarded. The opportunity isn’t some future breakthrough; it’s the moment you stop feeding the wrong story.