Finding Peace in a Noisy World: Why Mindfulness Matters

Jake Foster, PABy Jake Foster, PA

 

What we experience and how we experience it is really shaped by the state of mind we are in. It’s easy to think of our minds as a place where what we experience is recorded through the cameras of our eyes, like some sort of raw recording of the world from our perspective. But it actually isn’t really like that at all. Our experience is deeply affected by the state of mind we are in. What we see and what we remember about an experience are affected by the emotions we are having in that moment. We can be in the most pleasant place in the world but still be miserable because of some sort of distraction in our mind.

 

Our minds really are the starting place for us to be able to have pleasant experiences in life. Taking care of our minds starts with being able to pay attention to it. That is becoming a pretty hard thing to do right now, because our attention is under constant assault. The digital economy is engineered to control our attention. It is designed to keep us scrolling, clicking, sharing, and posting. Often, we are fueled by outrage at the content the algorithm puts in front of us. Sometimes we are caught by something genuinely amusing or thought-provoking. Both happy and outrageous content have the same end result though: to keep our attention thoroughly and for as long as possible, and to keep us coming back. How long can you go without looking at your phone at dinner, during a movie, or during time spent with other people?

 

This connection to the digital economy has done something that is kind of shocking to us. It makes it seem that our minds don’t really live in the vicinity of our bodies anymore. Our minds are always elsewhere, transported to some other place. We seek meaningful experience, whether that is doing a good job at work or enjoying a well-earned vacation, but then we avoid that experience by allowing our minds to be elsewhere.

 

A way out of this distraction economy is to consider being more mindful. Mindfulness isn’t just an eccentric practice based in some sort of spiritual superstition, nor is it some sort of endurance test to see how long you can focus on breathing or sitting still. It can really be used as a way to train your brain to just simply pay attention. To recognize a distracting thought or emotion. It can help sort through those thoughts and prioritize things that are really important. It can help you to actually observe your experience in the moment and help keep your mind in the same place as your body. Having your emotions colored by what you are experiencing right in front of you, rather than what the algorithm has distracted you with, can change the way we see the world and each other.