7 ms·
Well, mindfulness certainly has been overhyped. Apps and gurus have pushed it as a cure-all and people have eaten it up because our society is broken and people
by ecwilson 8y ago
Well, mindfulness certainly has been overhyped. Apps and gurus have pushed it as a cure-all and people have eaten it up because our society is broken and people are over stressed. Mindfulness is simply an introductory technique meant to be expanded upon.
Personally, I've still found it very useful. When I'm meditating frequently, I'm less reactive -- it's like there's this new sense of "self" that is observing and controlling my brain, whereas before, or when my meditation habit lapses, my brain is just doing it's thing in a more reactive way. This has been incredibly useful both personally and professionally.
- kaycebasques 8y agoMy go-to is to spend 5 minutes explicitly relaxing my body. It increases my self-awareness and ability to focus while reducing stress.
- jonny_eh 8y agoI don't think our society is broken, at least not more-so compared to any other generation.
- cal5k 8y agoIronically the "society is broken" narrative, aside from being unsupported by the evidence, is often used to sell mindfulness products & services.
- FundThrowaway 8y agoI'd argue that the broken society narrative is a subjective opinion and not objectively quantfiable. One man's broken society is another man's utopia, it's all dependent on your personal beliefs.
- collyw 8y agoIts probably as dependent on your position in such a society.
- fastball 8y agoI think there are some measures you can use to say some aspects of society are more broken than in the past, for instance suicide[1]. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-su...
- cal5k 8y agoSteven Pinker's latest book, "Enlightenment Now", has a pretty good treatment on suicide rates and other "broken-ness" indicators. The data-driven conclusion is that on almost every metric civilization is less broken than before, if it could indeed be called broken at all.
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoWhere's the irony?
- jm__87 8y agoAh, I dunno. I can only speak for North America, but I personally feel like between the rise of identity politics, our youngest generation reporting record high levels of depression and anxiety, a massive divide between left wing and right wing and the rise of the far left and alt right.. it feels like a lot of people have lost their mind over here. Edit: Not really sure what HN dislikes about this post. My goal here was to offer some actual aspects of North American society which many would agree to be worse than they were in recent history as opposed to simply saying "society is broken". I was expecting some actual discussion here.
- Retra 8y agoWhy do you think that any of this is new?
- naasking 8y agoThe concepts aren't new, the fact that they're now mainstream is new. Do you think Trump would have been elected 20 years ago? Do you think comedians would actually be scared to perform on college campuses 20 years ago? The insanity was always there, but has become mainstream.
- Omnius 8y agoThese things come in waves and it happened in the early 90 late 80's also. We get ultra PC it goes to far we over correct and the start inching back to it.
- naasking 8y agoI don't know, did we actually over correct from the "ultra PC" movements of the 80s and 90s? I don't think we've seen anything like what's happened lately.
- jm__87 8y agoYou would disagree that American politics has become more polarized in the last two decades?
- sudosteph 8y agoYou're spot on. Anyone who thinks our society is broken now compared to the past is being ignorant of how downright terrible life was for most of humanity throughout history. This society has given me, a female individual, full autonomy over my body, my education, and my career prospects (for most anything short of being a catholic priest!) and protects my right to that autonomy via law. My grandmother didn't even have that. This society has produced and distributed vaccines that protect my entire generation from devastating illness. This society has seen the harm that inhumane treatment towards people of color and homosexual people has and legislated protections for both (cultural norms are still behind in some places, but vastly improved over previous generations). You may think that too many facebook notifications is stressful, but how stressed do you think Alan Turing felt when he was tried for indecency and medically castrated for being gay? Heck, compared to many generations before that (and some deeply conservative societies that still exist in theocracies today), he was lucky to not be murdered by the government. I freaking love modern western society and refuse to shrug off all the progress we've made and cast it aside as "broken".
- jm__87 8y agoI wrote another post with my own negative perspective on the current state of affairs in North America, but I agree with you as well that we shouldn't forget all the progress we have made in other domains. Good post.
- animal531 8y agoI agree with you, except that mostly everything you say seems to be applicable to individuals and not the society they live it. You are far more better off than in the past, but maybe because of that you (and everyone else) sometimes (unknowingly) are performing actions that are degrading their society as a whole. Maybe you're having children later, having them raised by a nanny because you're wealthy and/or are working more, maybe you're not allowing them outside to play/grow. Maybe because you're using Facebook you're connecting far more superficially with your friend circle. Your grandmother had the support of all her family, community and neighbors, whereas in the modern world we're going to be going through a lot of things by ourselves. I think ultimately we can't really know if society is broken, we can only compare it what we had before and what we imagine it can be like. That maybe casts a very negative light on it, when in reality we're doing relatively decently.
- budadre75 8y ago'Broken' should be read as people not having great relationships and mental health as once people used to have; families falling apart, couples divorcing, more single-parent families, less people marrying, much higher depression rates, high suicide rates, people reporting not having any friends, lots more people shutting in. Note that I am talking about several modern societies at once, Asian and Western societies.
- lisper 8y agoModern humans have to deal with a lot of stuff that was not part of our ancestral environment. It's not too surprising that this causes stress.
- reitanqild 8y agoThere is also a lot of stress we don't have to deal with - at least here in the west, like keeping food stocked for winter, worrying about bears and wolves, worrying about various crippling or deadly diseases that used to be commonplace etc etc.
- Hextinium 8y agoIronically the lack of these stressors may also contribute to people strengthening family bonds because they cannot survive without them.
- bloak 8y agoThose are some things we don't have to deal with, but what's the connection with "stress"? Did people actively worry about getting leprosy or polio? Was that really a cause of "stress"? Perhaps it was; I don't know. For me, driving in bad traffic, when I'm late for an appointment, can be stressful, but thinking that I might get Alzheimer's, so perhaps I should sort out wills and power of attorney... not so much. And if we didn't have today's complex legal system, they'd be nothing to worry about at all, because what could I possibly do about it, except perhaps attend mass and say my prayers?
- LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
- acchow 8y agoalso an over-hyped narrative. It's effective tho. People want some explanation for why they're dissatisfied.
- tfuop 8y agoBbc is also.overly hyped