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Comment by Bxpsba | Hacker News Reader

>90% of people don't

Thats good. The world isnt run by yoga gurus and zen monks for very good reasons. Not all stress is bad.

And people who dont have life experience or the right people around them can easily be misled by receiving the wrong signals about how to cope with stress.

"They told me to move to the back of the bus. I got so angry but my apple watch told me to breath and I calmed down..."

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Rosa Parks did not act in the heat of the moment when she refused to give up her seat. It was a carefully planned moment with multiple parties involved in the planning, intending to have a specific effect and executed calmly. Being calm was an asset.

You might have an obscured impression of yogis and monks if you think all they do is sit around focusing on their breath all day

Hint: the goal of Buddhism is to reduce suffering in the world. It’s not a bad idea to start with yourself.

Calmness doesn't mean you stop taking action against injustice.

Calmness would just help you think logically. You can take a second to breathe and make better decisions. Maybe you would have made the same decision in the end and you just wasted those few seconds to take a breath but more often, life isn't so rushed that you don't have time to breathe and think for a moment.

I want to agree with you on some level, not all negative emotions are bad. It definitely seems like a lot of people pushing 'mindfulness' are pushing some utopian, culty good vibes version where we try to ignore or subdue all negative emotion.

But overall, being able to focus on your breathing (and control your anger, and control the consequences of your emotions) is a good thing, and it doesn't demand that you ignore whatever it was that made you feel stress in the first place.

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