Tomorrow I mark the 1000th day of meditation in a row.
(Ok, technically I missed a day in there so tomorrow is the 1000th out of 1001 days, but that’s not as satisfying to say so I’m going to fudge a bit since I’m not doing this for anyone but myself).
I started a couple months into the pandemic, after many false starts. Once I started keeping a scoreboard and valuing incremental progress (an idea suggested in by Cal Newport’s Deep Work, Thomas Sterner’s The Practicing Mind, and Scott Young’s Ultralearning), it finally took hold.
I can honestly say it has made a difference. When I’m stressed during the day I can now gain awareness and get the body to untense itself almost every time. This is something I can actually feel, so I know it’s working. Getting the mind to untense is a bit trickier and not always successful but like baseball, hitting the ball even 25% of the time can change everything.
It’s cliche to say but little things add up. 1000 days in a row* seems like an impossible feat, but how many days in a row have you brushed your teeth or eaten? If you get it to be a habit, it’s practically mindless. Other things I’ve done for just a little time that have added up are this blog (now at over 250k words and 330 posts, posted twice a week) and books (10 pages a day turned into 20 and all of a sudden I have to buy an extra bookshelf).
Is this patting myself on the back? Humble-brag? Ok, sure. But it’s more than that. I would love to inspire you and everyone I know to slowly start to do a tiny little bit of something every day and watch it add up. Whether it’s building a Cathedral of Junk or growing house plants or writing music or talking to strangers. I won’t go into how in this post (see the links above), I just want more people to believe and see that it is possible.