An Attention Deficit Guide to Meditation
I’m pretty terrible at a lot of things.
Playing badminton: embarrassing.
Applying liquid eye-liner: gave up years ago.
Using vegetables before they rot: hopeless.
But topping the list of things I suck at is sitting still.
Some of us have ants in out pants. I have hissing cockroaches strung out on Mountain Dew. Legs jiggle, hands fidget, hair twirls, arms swing. I’m a un-greased perpetual motion machine.
But enough people have told me about the benefits of meditation that I decide today is the day. Today is the day I sit still for a long period of time in an attempt to bring balance and peace into my life.
Having done little to no (no) research on meditation best practices, I was under the impression that it was mostly about concentrating on your breathing and connecting with some great zen bro in the sky. I felt a strong obligation to think thoughts about oneness and peace and acceptance and basically everything opposite to what I actually was thinking which was, “why didn’t you have a snack before doing this shit?”
To banish the disturbingly-realistic visions of turkey avocado sandwiches, I decided to concentrate on my breathing because that’s supposed to be a thing.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Think alarming thoughts about what would happen if you lost the ability to subconsciously regulate your breathing and had to spend every waking thought reminding yourself to breathe.
Have a small existential crisis.
Breathe out.
Remember the first time you beat your dad at a “holding your breath underwater” contest and how you felt both proud and deeply philosophical about the fragility of man.
Realize you have not taken a breath in a very long time.
Breathe in.
Thinking about breathing is exhausting. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
At this point, I’m feeling defeated and utterly ignored by the great zen bro in the sky.
The final item in my bag of tricks is a little tip I picked up from a Certa Mattress commercial.
I will count sheep. This will theoretically relax me towards Nirvana, or at the very least, Alice in Chains.
I do this, and it is extremely effective. I wake up 35 minutes later to a dog licking my ear. Did I mention I was in a park? I am. My face is very wet. My mouth is very dry. I had not yet reached my own personal zen, but would soon reach something far greater.
I would reach for my backpack, inside of which was the true path to enlightenment.
It tasted suspiciously like a turkey avocado sandwich.
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