You're Not Missing Anything

A man goes to a Zen teacher. “I’m exhausted and overwhelmed,” he says. “Teach me how to find peace.”

“Go look into the stream out back,” the teacher says. “It will give you your answer.”

The man returns frustrated. “The water was too muddy,” he says. “I couldn’t see anything. What was I supposed to learn?”

The teacher smiles. “How to leave things alone and wait for them to settle.”

Have you noticed how tired everyone is these days? You’d think we were doing more physical labor or expending more energy than our ancestors. But we aren’t. We're surrounded by conveniences, yet somehow feel constantly overdrawn.

In his book, The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han says that this exhaustion comes from what he calls our “achievement society.” Modern life runs on the belief that we should be able to do everything: optimize, produce, and remain endlessly open to possibility. So we become our own taskmasters, exploiting ourselves through unceasing internal activation.

People often come to my meditation classes worried that they have poor focus. But when I ask what they think a “normal” attention span looks like, their answers are often bizarre, inhuman, and frankly, scary. They think they should be like computers, running ten mental programs at once without delay or rest.

But meditation isn’t about optimization. It’s about learning to be where you already are with grace. If your mind is muddy, just observe that. If your mind is jumpy, just observe that. Whatever is arising, let it be.

You’re really not missing anything. That party you didn’t attend. That career you didn’t pursue. That city you never lived in. Remind yourself that fulfillment doesn’t happen elsewhere, and neither does rest.

What you’re seeking isn’t past the next achievement, notification, or life plan. It’s here, in the mud of each breath and thought, if you only let it settle.