I have frequently heard about the life changing effects of meditation from enthusiasts. It often comes across with religious fervor and intensity. It often includes jargon that doesn’t make sense to a technical person like me. How exactly does one “hold space?”
Notwithstanding my skepticism, I’ve tried a few times over the last 40 years to meditate.
I got nowhere.
I can’t stay still in silence.
I either fall asleep or fidget with an itch or a cramp. Nope. Meditation didn’t work for me. I wasn’t looking for a religion. I was skeptical that it could deliver life changing impacts. Plus, I was bad at it.
However, I kept running into people I respected, for whom meditation was a core value. These folks were often social entrepreneurs doing terrific work or philanthropists willing to bet on risky social entrepreneurs. They weren’t zealots. You might know them and appreciate their work for years without meditation coming up at all.
This is an excerpt from the article, Mindfully, Measurably 10 Percent Better: How Meditation Changed my Life by Jim Fruchterman.
This article is a part of a special series on the connection between inner well-being and social change, in partnership with The Wellbeing Project, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum, and Skoll Foundation.
