The One-Thing-at-a-Time Meditation Practice In other words, we don’t need to change what we do but how we do it. We need to interrupt the ordinary mind state that leaves us feeling overwhelmed by the demands of life. It is like we are standing on our tip toes looking over our own shoulders into the future. Our default mental state is to lean forward, off the axis of time. We’re having dinner at our favorite restaurant while mentally planning our meal at the next desired spot. We’re working at one job but considering the possibilities of the next.
It also arises in our thinking about long-term life stages and events. This habit doesn’t just arise at the micro level of day-to-day tasks. We are adept time travelers, physically here in this moment but mentally thinking about the next. We’re showering but thinking about the next text we’re going to send. We’re unloading the dishwasher but thinking about wiping down the counters. This mental habit is so ordinary that it goes unnoticed most of the time. To put it more precisely, we feel busy because we have a habit of doing one thing while thinking about the next. One thing we know about the state of busyness: it’s the product of a distracted mind. And some of us even have judgments about people who aren’t as busy - perhaps that those who don’t have full calendars are lazy or lonely (after all, who wants to miss out on the action?). But we’re also unwilling to make the changes to become significantly less busy. We tell ourselves that we don’t want to be so busy. In fact, busyness is often presented as a modern-day status symbol. And yet many of us seem strangely attracted to it. These phrases point to a mental state that we’re all craving some relief from. It’s rare to have a conversation these days without hearing the word “busy” repeated over and over, often in elaborate and colorful ways: “I’m swamped,” “I’m stuck in the grind,” “slammed,” “redlining,” “crazy,” “jammed.”
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