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Comment by muse900 | Hacker News Reader

Well said, employee 107 at Google, he must be wealthy by now.

I got someone in my office that does those kind of exercises etc. I highly respect him, but as you said he has a kid and he has loads of things in his mind etc. Believe me once a car rental company charged him extra money for something and all the mindfulness and exercises went out of the window, he was unhappy by it and he seemed unhappy for a few days.

While money is not everything and you can most certainly be happy without them, being able to provide what you deem necessary to your family is the most important thing.

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>and he seemed unhappy for a few days.

This. There's a real dark side to this 'feel good' culture. I've been into meditation for quite some time and it really does make you much more entitled. You get complacent with low stress and it becomes your new norm. When that new norm gets broken its very jarring and you realize you have less control of your emotions than you assumed. Apparantly, this stuff is like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Meanwhile the guys who deal with shit all day don't get fazed as much. Of course the car company screwed up, they almost always do, and the people who work there are barely above working at McDonalds. Having lowered expectations and a low regard for others seem to be the real way toward contentment in the modern world. Sure, that sounds cruel, but its probably true.

We just hired a new guy straight out of school to help out in IT and he's just easily stressed, surprised, and sometimes borderline livid at how bad some of our staff are and how terrible some of our vendors are. Life's different in college as college is something of a meritocracy. The office world and 'real life' are a non-stop shitshow of dishonesty, laziness, entitlement, rip-offs, and incompetence most of the time. You learn to live with it and things like meditation and positive thinking don't really help, especially if your tradition empathizes the 'goodness' in others. Thats simply is a disservice to you. People tend to follow a simple game theory-like strategy in life. They aren't going to be your pals and have your best interests in mind. They will have their own best interests in mind and a lot of times that means being shitty or lazy at their job. No 'happiness guru' is going to change that.

I used to think I could live without cynicism (or perhaps Stoicism) and with always thinking the best of the other person, but it just made me like your friend. A bit drugged up via my own practice and being unable to handle real life, real stress, and real everyday people.

I think this is why the idea of teaching resiliency to children seems to have had a resurgence. It's hardly a new concept and I wonder if it's blowback from the stereotypes that are pushed onto millennials (coddled and entitled) as they now represent the child raising demographic.

How is resiliency being thought to children? Genuine question. Is there a particular school of thought on this?

A lot of parenting media talks about the importance of teaching your children that they will not always be successful, will encounter difficulty, and that they need to have flexible thinking etc. I have young kids can rarely ever run across media talking about the "everyone wins" mentality that people seem to think is pervasive.

I would think a seasoned meditator could handle very high stress situations just fine. If you're meditating just to lower stress, you're doing it wrong. It's supposed to change your relationship to your own thoughts and emotions, your sense of identity, etc, so that you don't shut down in the face of stress and pain. Stress and pain are a necessary part of life; your resistance to them is what causes your suffering. Basic meditation stuff.

You'd think so, but I know a lot of guys like this. They buy into the "lifestyle" of calm or spirituality and they become divas of sorts. Anything that ruins their calm becomes an issue. Like any hobby it becomes overpowering obsessive and competitive. Turns out meditation/religion/spirituality doesn't actually change human nature. Hell, read /r/meditation sometime and see the subtle poking they do at each other. Its hilarious to read comments with a very arrogant and commanding tone about how modest and ego free they are.

I think you're playing up a 'no true scotsman' card here. I think most, if not all, people into meditation and spirituality become like this. If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It turns out it has a lot of downsides and often changes people for the worse. Maybe in some 'spiritual' way they're better people, but they still need to work with the real world and they seem pretty terrible at it. The guys I see losing their shit in public aren't poor people with bad social skills, but upper/middle class men and women who felt their entitlements challenged. One of those entitlements is feeling 'chill' about things. The woman doing yoga and meditation everyday is also the woman screaming at the kid at subway for not putting on enough olives on her sandwich. I've pressed these people before and I usually get a "I can't deal with unspiritual people" excuse. Its incredible how the cult of calm brings out the worst of people. I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, homeopathy, etc and other questionable things that can, and do, victimize children.

I think the idea that all meditators, or even those who do it 'correctly', become some kind of super-being to be pretty silly. Its obvious the effect it has is pretty subtle and the kind of people who buy into it are often insufferable and pretentious. I think its okay to learn as a quick-ish stress reducer, but the idea of a daily hour-long practice and all the accoutrements surrounding it is fairly absurd and leads to pretty stupid places.

It seems like the premise of your complaint is that there isn't a way do it correctly/incorrectly, therefore all practitioners can be classed together and the practice in general may be dismissed if any of its followers exhibit undesirable and related properties.

But you never give an argument for why there would be no variation in instruction, actual execution of practice, background ideologies, etc.

> I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, etc

Meanwhile, that comment makes it clear that you are speaking of a very particular subset of practitioners. You are referring to a New Age-derived subculture here: their attributes aren't derived from practicing meditation, they probably practice some form of meditation because their subculture values it (i.e. by labeling themselves meditators, they gain cultural currency. There is incentive to exploit the practice for social purposes to begin with).

There are also many other practitioners who view meditation as totally unrelated to anything like spirituality, who understand its operation in purely psychological terms. And there are solemnly religious folks who take it very seriously and probably do not cavalierly exploit it for social gain as you describe.

I think you're describing New-Age cultists and not serious, pragmatic Buddhists, for example. Calmness is not enforced, passion can and does arise, but one is not attached to calmness nor passion. They simply come and go. This is meditation.

You can even do meditation properly without buying into Buddhism. Although you're not going to avoid running into it entirely, so at some point you'll find someone talking to you about silly religious stuff like "prevent suffering to all living beings, animal, plant and mineral" :-)

(even though the "prevent suffering" idea has some real interesting and beautiful implications, when they add "and mineral", it's like they played too much 20-questions or something)

> If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it.

It works like magic the same way exercising works like magic to build you muscles. Or in other words, it's not magic, and takes a long time and a lot of self discipline. That's why everyone isn't doing it.

> You'd think so, but I know a lot of guys like this. They buy into the "lifestyle" of calm or spirituality and they become divas of sorts

So, when you said

> I've been into meditation for quite some time and it really does make you much more entitled. You get complacent with low stress and it becomes your new norm. When that new norm gets broken its very jarring and (..)

you really meant to say that you too have bought into that "lifestyle" for quite some time now?

It's not a "no true Scotsman" fallacy if you only implement the easy, happy, sweet half of serious practice. It's not even hard, you just need to include the unhappy emotions in the practice and not ignore them. All the introductory texts and lessons are very clear about this. If someone somehow manages to miss that, then yes, it's not a fallacy to point out they're doing it wrong.

"It doesn't work!", "Well you're half-assing it.", "Ah, pffft, no true Scotsman! I'm just going to assume it makes people entitled."

Interestingly, literally no one I know who is into meditation, are "like this". As an, all of them are quite aware that negative emotions are supposed to be accepted as an important part of the practice (it actually makes them easier to deal with, what's not to like). But then, I also have zero patience for people that eat the menu like this, so I probably filter and not get to know them enough to find out they're really into the "lifestyle" of happy floaty.

> You learn to live with it and things like meditation and positive thinking don't really help, especially if your tradition empathizes the 'goodness' in others.

When you say these things don't really 'help,' it depends on what your goals are in the first place. If your goal is to defeat them in a local competition for resources, you are correct. However, that's not the only possible goal-type. (Only really commenting on meditation though, 'positive thinking' is in direct conflict with the values of meditation, so lumping them together presents difficulties.)

> If your goal is to defeat them in a local competition for resources, you are correct.

If your goal is to become "Mr Spiritual" that's fine but now you lose your shit when the kid at Mcdonalds messes up your order because he upset your calm. Or you quit the 'rat race' and get a low paying job that you think is 'more spiritual and calm' and now have to move to a ghetto where you get mugged often and have to go on welfare to make up for your income.

The reality is that one goal eats at the other. That's my point. The only exception I can think of is monastic life where your needs are taken care of by begging or via welfare. My understanding is that this is what the Buddha intended with Buddhism and was very wary against teaching it to lay people. I imagine because it actually doesn't benefit the laity. It just leads to the problems listed for most.

> If your goal is to become "Mr Spiritual"

That's a false dichotomy. I know the type you're talking about—but many would find it equally undesirable to (or even another manifestation of) valuing only social/economic gain.

Edit: fixed typo. Also, here's an example of a third goal type: "I'm going to spend a huge chunk of my life at work. So, why not enjoy myself and the company of my co-workers while there?"

> now you lose your shit when the kid at Mcdonalds messes up your order because he upset your calm

second time you described a situation like this as if it's perfectly normal behaviour. it's not. and it's got nothing to do with meditation either.

is this yourself? or do you witness this sort of scene frequently?

you realize that if you say "well they probably have a lot on their plate, so they lose their shit at the tiniest slight", this makes you part of the problem right?

because, and it feels a little silly explaining to a person over the age of 12, but verbally abusing someone, be it in a shop or anywhere else, is never appropriate or acceptable, no matter where they put your olives, and no I don't care who started it.

> this is what the Buddha intended

the nice thing about not fully buying into Buddhism and still practising meditation is that you don't have to place any extra importance to what scholars say that some guy may or may not have said or intended thousands of years ago.

Maybe if calm, in real life, is what one wants , a more reliable way would be to look at the mental training of navy seals, athletes and martial artists ?

I find this sad. I agree that those who proselytize momentary distraction from life as the key to happiness tend to cause your very situation.

The key to meditation as a skill is to learn to control your mind and attention so that you aren't caught by difficulties.

When difficulties become ... more difficult, it becomes more challenging. What "modern" meditation does wrong, is it does not prepare you for the assaults that come with a truly challenging situation. Mindfulness probably addresses resisting hedonistic things, but Stoicism and others are much better for walking through life's challenges.

Pick up Meditations or Obstacle is the Way or Warrior Mindset. The last is a quantitative manual for training yourself to handle stress, written by combat fighters.

Your post made me feel a little sad.

I'm working on my PhD thesis at the moment and between papers being rejected, supervisors dropping of the grid for weeks at a time, side projects failing etc., I've been trying to find a little respite in mindfulness.

I think there is certainly a place for mindfulness, calm and stress reduction techniques. I worry about stress related heart disease, aneurisms, cancer. But at the same time, a healthy cynicism can ground you.

Life is confusing.

Literally starving is a problem, as is being homeless. But the hedonic treadmill is real, and people's notions of what is necessary tend to scale with income. Being rich isn't, by itself, the key.

Happiness is feeling useful/having purpose (autonomy, mastery, purpose) [1], meeting your basic needs (~$75K/year research shows [2]), and spending time with friends and loved ones [3] [4].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

[2] http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...

[4] http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/happi...

Good stuff, but 75k seems awfully low when houses cost 2MM.

Doesn't apply to some real estate locale outliers.

Is there a difference between whether that income (which obviously would need to be adjusted for different areas) comes from a single job you can't afford to quit vs say, passive investment income where you don't feel pressure to stay with a bad boss or something else?

Those seem like big distinctions.

Serenity now, insanity later.

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