What Am I (Really) Getting By Meditating?

I've been meditating a long time, since the mid-90's at least. And what do I have to show for it? 

Look closely enough and you'll see anxiety, insecurity, and everything else that plagues the modern American male, whether they admit it or not. 

Hell, you don't even have to look that closely.

Worse, during the decades I’ve been ass-on-the-cushion, I've been cruel and careless, thoughtless and arrogant. I’ve been as much of a dick as the dicks who would never meditate because they’re such dicks. 

I’ve spent countless hours following my breath, quieting my monkey-mind and tuning in to the whole inner and outer world. I’ve experienced profound calm, stumbled onto meaningful insights, and even felt the occasional euphoria of enhanced connectedness and consciousness.

And then I’ve gotten up and done something stupid.

I’ve cultivated compassion while leaving people damaged and neglected. I’ve struggled through distraction and anxiety, only to choose the path of least resistance when life outside Nirvana got difficult. 

I’ve pursued “wellness” while drinking, smoking, and processed foods-ing my way to high blood pressure and ten more pounds than I should be carrying around.

These are just the facts.

Dude, Where’s My Enlightenment?

Shouldn't I have been aware of all that bad stuff I was doing as I was doing it? 

Shouldn't my interminable hours on my ass, with a stiff spine and a vacant gaze, given me the tools to do better? 

Shouldn't all that goddamn mindfulness have made me mindful of every step I took in the wrong direction?

I think the answer is yes, and no.

It's easy to point to any less-than-ideal result and say a thing “doesn't work.” But that's to ignore what would've happened otherwise. 

If I'm an asshole now, I'm the kind of asshole who can embrace in retrospect everything I've done wrong. And as time goes on, I do less wrong — and when I do, I acknowledge it quicker. And next time (or after a couple more tries), I do better.

Is the ratio of work to reward what I thought it would be when I first sat down, pretty sure it was even money I’d be the next Siddhartha? No. 

But has it been worth it? A thousand fucking yes’s. 

Grow or Die

I’ve seen men who, programmed from childhood to be blind to their own faults, never change. 

I’ve seen them justify and equivocate, rage and deflect, stamp their big man feet and shout — anything to avoid becoming aware of how they’re fucking up, over and over and over.

I’ve seen men whose personalities and outlooks calcify as they age, their shortcomings and misconceptions hardening into a bone structure that holds up an inflexible, stagnant individual.

Instead of growing into who they’re becoming, they freeze in place, moored to the comfortable illusions and habitual patterns that define their increasingly static “selves.” 

They stop bending, and start breaking.

That’s the guy I’d be without all the sitting. 

The problem with meditation is the same as the problem with working out, or learning a language, or being a good partner: it’s fucking hard. 

If you decide to do it — really do it — you will fail miserably and repeatedly. You will marvel at how distracted you are, how little you’re changing, how angry and afraid and unsure you still are. 

And then you’ll turn around and see the road behind you, and be overcome with gratitude that you made it here.