Make Sure You're Not Tracking The Wrong Lion

The tarmac had been covered in a slick of aviation oil. Sitting on top of this was a thin sheen of water. My car had illegal tyres, worn down to slick smoothness. This was not going to end well.
As I entered the corner too fast, the laws of physics began to play out. Momentum, mass, all of the stuff I had mostly forgotten since taking my 'O' levels. I was going too fast. I saw the wall and felt the back of the car begin to slide away.
"Don't touch the brakes!" shouted my passenger.
My foot hesitated over the pedal.
"Remember what I said. Where is your head going?"
I forced my gaze to the left. To the clear road ahead. I steeled myself to deliberately not look at the looming obstacle. I tensed myself against a certain collision. But as I continued to make sure my head was facing where I wanted to go, now though to the right due to the overseer and skid, my hands instinctively turn the wheel clockwise. The car levelled, straightened up and I exited the bend safely. The tyre wall receded in the rear view mirror.
"Excellent" grinned my companion. "You remembered. Always look where you want to go, not where the car is heading. Well done. Now let's do it again, only faster."
There is a phrase in the book The Lion Trackers Guide to Life that I've been thinking a lot about recently. It's this, "Make sure you're not tracking the wrong Lion." I've been applying it to thinking about plans and goals, things I want to do. It serves as a reminder to focus on where you want to go, but also as a reminder for where you spend your attention.
My attention has been hijacked for a while. Watching events across the pond. The hateful rhetoric, the nasty threats, the lack of compassion and humility. I watched as the tech bro's abandoned standards, threw away their backbones and bent the knee whilst offering sacks of cash. I sighed and got angry. I talked to friends about each latest presidential proclamation, with a sense of incredulity. I found it hard to believe that this was actually happening. I gave more and more mental energy to trying to work it out, trying to see how things could come to this. It was devouring my attention and therefore my life.
But when working on building my Zettlekasten (something for another post) I found my 'Wrong Lion' quote. And as it linked to my skid pan memory something made sense.
Trump is the wrong lion. By giving him my attention I was tracking him. I was noticing him and he was affecting me. And I don't want that. So what if instead, I tracked the lion I was most interested in? What if instead I tracked "how to live a better life" What if I tracked a lion made up of doing the good small things?
If I track lions like these, lions within my control, things will improve. If I force my head to focus my attention on the things I can do to support, create, help and love, then there will be hope. If I remind myself to regularly to make sure I'm tracking the right lion, then progress will slowly happen. Isn't that really all we can do?