Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book

by Dan Harris

Mindfulness is the ability to see what’s happening in your head at any given moment, so that you don’t get carried away by it.

“Thinking is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.”

You are as useful as a jar of guano. You have all the personality of a wall sconce, all the sophistication of a spork, all the cultural heft of a Hoobastank record.

Dr. Sanjiv Chopra: “Everyone should meditate once a day. And if you don’t have time to meditate, then you should do it twice a day.”

That reminds me of a famous Buddhist parable about “the second arrow.” A man is walking through the woods and he gets hit by an arrow. He immediately engages in a round of self-pitying thoughts: “Who shot me with an arrow? Why am I always the one who gets hit by an arrow? Is this going to totally ruin my dinner plans?” Those painful thoughts are the second arrow.

Tennessee Williams is reported to have said, “There are only three great cities in the United States: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. All the rest are Cleveland.”

My meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein once gave me the single best piece of advice I’ve ever received when it comes to the management of worry. When for the eighty-seventh time you find yourself chewing over, say, an impending deadline or your rival’s promotion, maybe ask yourself one simple question: “Is this useful?”

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

“We don’t meditate to get better at meditating; we meditate to get better at life.”

Get off your ass and then…uh, get back on it and meditate. Welcome to the party.