I recently started meditating daily using the Headspace app. I love the approach the app takes to meditation because it’s all about training your mind. And like any good training program, they regularly ask you to recall your motivation for pursuing the training. In particular, they encourage you to ask yourself how other people in your life might benefit.
This question intrigues me. Who exactly might benefit from me meditating regularly? There’s one obvious answer–my husband since we live together and he provides me with emotional support. It’s likely that my coworkers will also benefit since we spend a lot of time together and have to deal with stressful situations on occasion. I’d like to believe my meditation training will also benefit other people in my life–friends, family, students, fellow artists, other people at my gym, etc. But this seems to be claiming a pretty wide sphere of influence and the mechanism is less clear.
Still, I’d like to believe it’s true. Recently I’ve been engaging in a lot of behaviors designed at self improvement (like meditation). I’ve undertaken most of these changes with the goal of making myself happier and more productive. But it’s nice to think that these changes I’m making might benefit others too.
I saw this sign on a hotel while I was on vacation this past weekend and thought YES! I am WE, and while I’m not quite sure who YOU is, I’m not just making these improvements for myself.
Sarah Zureick-Brown 