Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination never put off ’til tomorrow what you can do today.  -- Lord Chesterfield (Letters to His Son, Letter XCIX, December 26, O.S. 1749)

Somewhere between ten and forty million men, women, and children in the United States have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control published a paper concluding that “11 percent of U.S. school-aged children had received an ADHD diagnosis by a health care provider” and “the percentage of children 4–17 years of age taking medication for ADHD, as reported by parents, increased by 28% between 2007 and 2011.

” (The CDC hasn’t updated these numbers since 2013, presumably because they’ve suffered so many severe budget cuts.) The American Psychiatric Association, on the other hand, says they estimate the incidence of ADHD at around 5 percent of the child population of the United States.

Millions more individuals possess many ADHD-type-characteristics even though they may have learned to cope so well that they don’t think of themselves as people with attention-related problems.

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Read by Marie T Russell. Publisher InnerSelf

Music By Caffeine Creek Band, Pixabay

ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer’s World

In this updated edition of his groundbreaking classic, Thom Hartmann explains that people with ADHD are not abnormal, disordered, or dysfunctional, but simply “hunters in a farmer’s world.” Often highly creative and single-minded in pursuit of a self-chosen goal, those with ADHD symptoms possess a unique mental skill set that would have allowed them to thrive in a hunter-gatherer society. As hunters, they would have been constantly scanning their environment, looking for food or threats (distractibility); they’d have to act without hesitation (impulsivity); and they’d have to love the high-stimulation and risk-filled environment of the hunting field. With our structured public schools, office workplaces, and factories those who inherit a surplus of “hunter skills” are often left frustrated in a world that doesn’t understand or support them.

Thom Hartmann is the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated talk-show The Thom Hartmann Program and the TV show The Big Picture on the Free Speech TV network. He is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books, including Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception, ADHD and the Edison Gene, and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, which inspired Leonardo DiCaprio’s film The 11th Hour. He is a former psychotherapist and founder of the Hunter School, a residential and day school for children with ADHD. Visit his website: www.thomhartmann.com or his YouTube channel.