When I don't have time to sit and breathe, something is wrong with my life

Dec 30, 2012 · 2 minute read · Comments
meditationpracticetime management

It’s been a long time since I’ve mentioned meditation here. In fact, it’s been ten months! This despite my knowledge of how beneficial it is.

There’s a reason: I completely lost my meditation practice at some point this year. I don’t even remember when I lost it. It may have had something to do with the fact that the iPad app we had been using as a meditation timer suddenly stopped making sound and we didn’t know why.

Yeah, what a sad excuse. But this is exactly how, when one’s practice is already in trouble, any trivial glitch (so easily solved one way or another) is an excuse to stop.

Abby and I have periodically “tried” to get back on, but as Yoda wisely said,

Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try.

So now what?

Do

We’ve decided to “do”. This meant having to discuss the various reasons and chain reactions that lead to not doing meditation, and how to head them off. Meditation can be hard, but really, sitting and breathing for just ten minutes in the morning is, objectively, not so hard.

It’s not hard to realize that if I am so “busy” that I don’t have time to sit and breathe for ten minutes, something is wrong with my life. Something has become unbalanced. Abby and I have had quite a year of many activities and experiences, but at some point, I started neglecting some basics. In particular, the last two months of this year have been something of a blur. Abby has tried to get us back to meditating, but I’ve resisted with some pretty bad excuses.

But as of today, we are back. Being too “busy” means priorities are out of whack: did I really need to read those blog posts or tweets for ten minutes, instead of meditating? The answer is embarrassingly obvious when the mind is clear.

Oh, and as for the iPad meditation app: I checked the app and it’s making the start and end sounds just fine now. And if it didn’t, that wouldn’t stop us.

Conclusion

Meditation is good, and I’m back. In order to commit myself to keeping up the practice, I have decided that I should write about meditation on this blog at least once a month! It’s on my calendar.

(Update of 2013-02-01)

A report on my meditation in January 2013.

(Update of 2013-03-01)

A report on my meditation in February 2013.