#451 — The One Resolution That Matters Most
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
126.56486
Summary
As has been widely discussed, we are living through an all-out war for our attention. And most of the digital economy has been engineered to keep you clicking and scrolling and sharing and doing these things in a continuous state of agitation or outrage.
Transcript
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As another year begins, many of us will resolve to exercise more and sleep better and eat
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Of course, these are all good things to do, but there's a prior commitment, whether one
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makes it consciously or not, that will determine the quality of everything else, and that's
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As has been widely discussed, we are living through an all-out war for our attention.
00:00:52.600
And most of the digital economy has been engineered to keep you clicking and scrolling and sharing
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and doing these things in a continuous state of agitation or outrage.
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And even when the mood is different, let's say you've been captured by something genuinely
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amusing, that cat sleeping on top of that dog, sleeping on top of that tiger, the result is
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now a new normal of perpetual distraction and fragmentation.
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We start a conversation and then reach for our phones.
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This is a book we really wanted to read and find that we just can't help but check our
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We watch a film while simultaneously scrolling some digital timeline.
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We barely live in the vicinity of our bodies anymore.
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And this has become entirely normal to be elsewhere almost all of the time.
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We want meaningful experience and yet we are training ourselves to avoid it.
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Mindfulness isn't just something to add to your list of commitments.
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It's the skill that can revise and reorganize the list.
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Mindfulness clarifies what deserves your attention and what doesn't.
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It allows you to notice pointless and even painful distractions and to drop them.
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So much of the quality of our lives isn't a matter of what happens to us or even of what
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It's a matter of how our minds respond to everything we experience in each moment.
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Many people think mindfulness is a strange practice that is based on some spiritual superstition.
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Others imagine it to be a kind of endurance test.
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You force yourself to sit perfectly still, suppressing your thoughts, and you're chasing
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Mindfulness is simply the ability to pay clear attention to the contents of consciousness
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To sensations, perceptions, emotions, intentions, thoughts, exactly as they are, as they arise,
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without grasping at what's pleasant or pushing what's unpleasant away.
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The point is to make what is unconscious or barely conscious something you're aware of.
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Why did you say that thing that you now regret?
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How were you feeling the moment before you said it?
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You don't need to change your experience to clearly observe it.
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And paradoxically, the act of observation begins to change how you feel and perceive the world.
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This matters because your mind colors everything.
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These mental states make the world and the people in it appear a certain way.
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And without mindfulness, these mental states seem to define who we are.
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With mindfulness, we can see them as nothing more than patterns in consciousness
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but reveals a condition of well-being that is deeper than any passing pains and pleasures.
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Can you watch a movie without checking your phone?
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Can you read for an hour without interrupting yourself?
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for whom mindfulness will make an enormous difference.
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And this isn't about sitting cross-legged on a cushion every day
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It's about becoming familiar with the mechanics of your own mind.
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How thoughts and emotions can seem to subsume and define you.
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and experience the intrinsic freedom of the nature of your mind
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Because there's really nothing you need to believe
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All that's required is a willingness to look carefully