Looking in this blog’s drafts folder, I have ten different entries that I’ve started writing since breaking my leg in October.  Unfortunately, each of those times, I’ve become so bogged down in thinking about what I wanted to write that I simply gave up.  So I decided this weekend to take the easy road: why not keep blog entries short and sweet?  Let’s see if this works…

One reason why I meditate: because it helps me realize just how insanely silly it is to get mentally spun up on things that, in the long run, simply don’t matter.

I was thinking back to a situation in 1995 with someone I dated.  I had a huge fight with that person, and at the time, I was absolutely convinced my feelings had been hurt so badly — so badly — that I would never be the same again.  No, really.  I’m not kidding.

Through meditation, I’ve started pinpointing those moments in my life, and have actually had to stop myself from smiling on the cushion as I’ve realized that my reaction was, in hindsight, laughable at best.

What about the argument I had with my spouse a few months ago…looking back, was it really worth the energy required to get my mind spinning on something that I now realize was absolutely and completely inconsequential? And what did we even argue about anyway?  Or, why last year did I allow myself to get so emotionally wound up on getting an iPad?  Has this little electronic device really changed my life, because I had sure convinced myself of that fact about this time last year.

For me, meditation has helped me put things in perspective, and then given me the mental space to actually start applying those lessons in my everyday life.  That’s not to say that every time I feel grumpy, I’m able to instantly tamp down those feelings, but I do find myself realizing that there’s really no point in being grumpy, and that, in fact, I may actually hurt someone else through those emotions.

There you go — certainly not the most important reason that I meditation, but the one that came to mind this weekend.  And, finally, something about meditation that won’t wind up in my drafts folder.