Positively Glorious!

Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit stretched– as Bilbo described, I feel like butter spread over too much bread. I know the cause: there’s a notable lack of mindful time in my life right now. I’ve known it for some time– months, in fact. Yet, like a sick man who deals daily with his sickness although it’s dragging him down rather than visit the doctor, I’ve done little to improve it. Why do we do these things to ourselves?

I’ve written about meditation time before, and noted that my life becomes less than ideal without a certain amount of meditation time. Previously in my life, meditation would be a focus, but periodically it drops off. The outcome is that I have swings of positivity, a pendulum of mindfulness. Phases of centered beauty, punctuated by phases of seemingly frenetic loss of balance.

Now, don’t get me wrong, my “frenetic loss of balance” is not exactly catastrophic. In fact, it’s often unobservable from the exterior. I’m lucky enough that my low points have become times that are often accompanied by friends, gin and tonics on the patio and plenty of genuine laughter. Still, I know myself. I feel that I’m off balance. So whether others notice or not, I realize that there is a problem.

I saw a nice quote yesterday on a friend’s blog that pertains to just this issue:

I remember the words of Jennifer Berezan, talking about her chanting practice — “I chant everyday not because I have a tremendous spiritual experience every time, but because one of those times I will have that experience, and I need to continue to chanting to be ready and receive it.” As Sylvia said in her last newsletter, doing a little something spiritual every day is more effective than binging and purging.

That’s the point of inflexion. “Doing a little something spiritual every day” is not something I’ve been doing. I either do something large, or nothing at all. “Binging and purging” is a harsh way to describe it, but I have to admit some uncomfortable truth in the analogy.

So, perhaps the answer to my quest for meditation time is not to wait until I can have that solid hour of strict meditation. Perhaps it’s as simple as taking 10 minutes every morning where I am not preparing for work, taking care of the watering, or anything else. Perhaps I should focus on doing that “little something spiritual every day”.

My problem is the view that taking 10 minutes isn’t enough– it’s like lipservice, it’s pointless. It’s like being a facker, a poser. But is it? In reality, the person taking only 10 minutes every morning is much more mindful than my egocentric big-talking self who doesn’t actually take the time he talks about.

Maybe I’ll try something small, something sustainable, if not grand. Maybe I’ll try it and not call myself a poser. Maybe doing something small everyday is better than spinning off center.