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MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS are all the rage these days. A year ago the big push was for sustainability. There was sustainable toilet paper and sustainable laundry detergent for sale in all the sustainable markets. But now that’s old news; this year the flock is striving to be mindful. And meditation is huge, mostly because it’s so good for you. “Meditating regularly can not only help shift negative thought patterns—it may even slow the loss of brain cells.” I read that somewhere, can’t remember where but it’s everywhere these days, so it could have been on my cereal box this morning.
This week while mindfully waiting for my acupuncture appointment, mindfully hydrating myself at the same time, I picked up a magazine that is actually titled “Mindful.” It talks about all the ways you can be mindful and all the things you can do mindfully. Turns out you can do almost everything you already do, but if you just pay attention while you are doing it you are suddenly very trendy and highly evolved. You can make a mindful sandwich and then eat it mindfully. There’s even a recipe for mindful pasta primavera. You can drink mindfully and drive mindfully, although I am pretty sure you cannot drink and drive mindfully at once.
Wanting to be as mindful as possible, I decided to take a six-week course in mindfulness to be taught by a local respected mindfulness expert. Two months ago I mailed her a $150 deposit check but never heard back about it. I recently emailed her to see if the class was still scheduled to start in September and if so should I pay the balance due, and she wrote back asking if she had cashed the check because she couldn’t find it and wasn’t sure if she had spent it, but maybe she had.
I decided not to take her course.
For a more serious take on mindfulness and meditation, read Well-Being Editor Mary Carpenter’s previously published posts.
— Andrea Rouda
Andrea Rouda blogs at The Daily Droid.