Meditation?

Meditation. I have wanted to be great at this for years. There seems to be no shortage of books, apps, magazines, subscriptions, classes, and websites on this topic.

The funny thing is that simply purchasing or reading about meditation does not give you the beneficial effects of meditation. You actually have to do it. Believe me, I have tried these things instead of meditating. Also why purchase all these things when meditation itself is free?

My guess is that I may not be alone in this mass purchasing of meditation material.

The fact is for the longest time I just did not want to sit in silence with my own thoughts. There is nothing wrong with my thoughts, but they are just not as exciting as the other things that I could be doing. Like reading, watching television, cycling (this one is probably just me), or staring at my phone (this is probably many people).

Maybe it comes down to procrastination. Every time I think I should meditate, I say, yeah I’ll do that later today. Usually I don’t.

Or maybe it’s the fact that I think I need to sit for fifteen to twenty minutes. This honestly feels like an eternity. I know they say you can only meditate for something like five minutes to start to get the effects. The five minutes in my head just seems too short. If I am going to do it I might as well do the fifteen minutes, which I then don’t do because it is an eternity.

Eventually I decided that I didn’t have anything to lose by meditating for five minutes.

I started building it into my everyday life. Specifically into my lunch breaks at work. My days off are less structured and thus I miss some. I tried rectifying this by adding it to my bedtime routine. It works sometimes.

What I am trying to say is that don’t give up. If you want to do something keep trying or try it a different way. Just think about all the experience you get by trying dear reader. I will see you on the next post dear reader.

-Abe