Reflect on how your life’s current structure interacts with your anxieties, needs, and hopes; if it’s not serving you well, make conscious changes to better align your life with your well-being.
Actively examine and design the structures of your life, considering which aspects of yourself they reinforce and which they diminish, to ensure you are cultivating the desired parts of your identity.
Be aware of the ‘status trap’ in careers where continuous upward movement can lead you away from tasks you genuinely love; prioritize roles that bring joy and align with your authentic self, even if it means a perceived loss of status.
Use self-awareness gained from practices like meditation to identify cues that reinforce an undesirable ego or feelings, then actively change the context of your life to reinforce the parts of yourself you want to cultivate.
When communicating, especially in commentary or opinion pieces, strive to create formats that allow for expressing uncertainty and presenting multiple possibilities rather than definitive answers, particularly in complex situations.
Be aware that social media algorithms (like Twitter’s ‘best performing tweets’) can trigger status anxiety and a sense of inadequacy; reduce exposure to these feeds to mitigate their negative impact.
Recognize that your interactions with social media platforms are not purely your own preference but are influenced by their design; step back and rationally evaluate whether these platforms genuinely serve your well-being.
Shift your focus and energy from national politics to local politics by getting involved, volunteering, or even running for office, as this offers a greater opportunity for impact, is often more life-affirming, and addresses real community needs.
If national politics feels overwhelming and unchangeable, redirect your energy to local issues where you can have a tangible, positive impact, which can be more life-affirming and effective than focusing solely on national problems.
Actively seek out and consume media from diverse viewpoints, even those you disagree with, to deliberately challenge your existing biases and foster a more balanced perspective as a journalist and citizen.
When broadening your media diet, choose sources or individuals with opposing views who also align with you in other ways (e.g., temperament, civility) to ensure you can genuinely listen with an open mind rather than just reinforcing your own correctness.
When consuming media that challenges your biases, be aware of the tendency to read defensively, with ‘hackles up’ and an internal ’lawyer’ ready to dismiss arguments, as this can hinder open-mindedness.
Cultivate self-awareness through mindfulness to observe your biases, such as the subtle pleasure you might get when negative events befall opposing politicians, using this as a signal to examine your reactions.
Shift your consumption from excessive daily news, especially about fleeting political events, to reading more books and content that is related to politics but not explicitly political, to gain deeper understanding and avoid over-indexing on ephemeral issues.
Recognize that many technology products are intentionally designed to be addictive, often using variable rewards to exploit human psychology; understanding this design can help you approach these platforms with greater awareness.
Be conscious of how features like ‘read receipts’ in messaging apps are designed to create social pressure and obligation, compelling you to engage more with the product to avoid feeling bad about not responding immediately.
Exercise caution and critical thinking regarding the future of virtual reality, as its potential to be highly addictive and more pleasurable than real life could lead to societal issues and a ‘Ready Player One dystopia.’
When you find yourself getting too wrapped up in assessing your meditation practice (e.g., how well you’re concentrating), tell yourself ‘who cares?’ to avoid unnecessary mental knots and wasted time.
If you’ve hit a plateau in your meditation practice, consider increasing your daily seated meditation time or experimenting with ‘free-range meditation’ by turning daily activities (like washing dishes or walking) into mindfulness exercises to integrate the practice into your life.
Consider joining a local meditation group to normalize your practice, connect with others facing similar challenges (like plateaus), and find inspiration to deepen your engagement and apply mindfulness more broadly in your life.
Establish a relationship with an experienced meditation teacher to gain invaluable guidance, help navigate common practice challenges, and receive advice from someone who has encountered similar ‘cul-de-sacs’ many times before.
Use meditation not to magically enter ’the zone’ during athletic performance, but to become ‘zone ready,’ increasing the likelihood of naturally entering that state.
Before an athletic event, find a quiet place and focus on the sensation of your breath entering and exiting your nose to calm your nerves.
During an athletic activity, bring your attention to physical sensations like your hands on the equipment, feet on the ground, or environmental factors (wind, sun) to get out of your head, refocus on the present moment, and avoid distracting thoughts.
For athletes seeking to integrate meditation into their performance, explore resources from experts like George Mumford (meditation teacher for NBA teams) and Michael Gervais (works with Seattle Seahawks) who specialize in this area.
Recognize that platforms like Twitter and cable news can flatten your personality, making you appear more definitive or strident than you are, and be mindful of how you portray yourself in these spaces.
Experiment with bulleted lists of thoughts when discussing complex events, allowing for multiple, sometimes contradictory, ideas to be presented without forcing a single thesis, which can better reflect uncertainty.
Install browser extensions that hide social media metrics (followers, likes, retweets) to reduce the ‘crazy-making’ competitive aspect of platforms and focus solely on content.
While using your phone, periodically bring your attention to the physical sensation of holding the device to briefly disengage from the content and the mental ‘story’ you’re in, fostering a more mindful interaction.
If you are a talented individual in the tech industry, consider working for companies that prioritize ethical design and positive societal impact, as this collective action can pressure other companies to change their practices.