Challenging Mindfulness

Lest you think I only post my view of life in this blog and live in a ‘bubble’ of single-sourced knowledge I offer you the following.

As often as not, I come across posts, stories, and articles that completely disagree with my view, my perspective, or my philosophy; and I read them.  Not because I enjoy being told I’m wrong but because I’m not egotistical enough to believe I have all the answers.  So, I read to enlighten myself.  Sometimes it serves to reinforce that my perspective makes more sense and other times it makes me question my own beliefs and dig deeper.  Either way, it’s time well spent.

Recently, I posted a BLOG about ‘mindfulness’.  In my first book ASK: The Questions to Empower Your Life, I spoke of ‘Carpe Momento’ as a better life view than ‘Carpe Diem”.
When I found this ARTICLE |Actually Let’s Not Be in the Moment, which not only seemed disgusted with the idea of mindfulness, but also seemed to attack the very notion of living in the moment (Carpe Momento), I had to take a look.

At one point in the piece I read “This judgmental tone is part of a long history of self-help-based cultural thought policing” and I knew that I just wasn’t ever going to agree with the author of the article, but here’s the thing.  The point the author is making wasn’t all bad, they just had a presupposition that led to an all or nothing stance.  Basically, the point of the article was that life is complicated and the idea that ‘mindfulness’ is a way to deal with that complication is absurd and it goes on to say that mindfulness practitioners are trying to blame YOU for the problems and not the normal ups and downs of life.  By itself, that makes sense.  But mindfulness isn’t the end all be all cure to the challenges that we all face, nor does lack of mindfulness mean YOU are the problem; it is simply a tool.  One of many tools that we can use to HELP us navigate the hurdles that life throws at us.

So while I disagree with this article because of it’s ‘all or nothing’ stance, it’s worth a read if only to help us remember that mindfulness, like all ‘self help’ tools are simply that; tools in our toolbox.  Use the tools correctly, in conjunction with all the other tools, and you will build the life you dream of having, A Better Life.

Let me know what you think of the article and if I missed something.