Putting the Me in Meditation

My hard-drive crashed. No, I'm not speaking metaphysically. I mean that with no warning, my computer stopped working and I lost everything I have done the past 6 months.

In dealing with my extraordinary loss, the past couple of days my emotions have ranged between looking on the bright side, which is the hard-drive is under warranty to mild diva annoyance that I'm having to deal with this problem, to all-out Sally Field in Steele Magnolias, "WHYYYY? I just WANNA KNOW WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!"

Today my mind was spinning about all the things I already need to do, in addition to the things I need to RE-do! And I decided to hit the eject button. I went into the Chopra center to meditate.

For those not familiar with meditation, it’s where you go and sit and pretend you're not thinking about yourself. At least that's what a novice like me does. I think of all the things I need to do, while trying not to think of all the things I need to do.

Today while meditating, I mean, sitting Indian style and going over my to-do list, it dawned on me that for me, meditation is just another form of procrastination. It’s like watching TV, or blogging or cleaning my bathroom, it’s what I do when I really have a million other things that I’m supposed to be doing.

I’m such a die-hard dawdler, that even after having this realization, I inquired on my way out about the guided meditation tonight. Which would buy me some more time before starting the writing project that I’ve been putting off since Monday.

And meditation isn’t only a form of procrastination, its top-of-the-line dilly-dallying. It trumps all other forms of time-wasting. In a procrastination contest you might score points for “I put off doing my taxes for 4 years” or “I put off bathing this month.” But you'll always one up someone with, “Oh yeah, well I put off thinking! Yeah, that's right!”

I was going to end this with something witty or funny about procrastination, but I’ll wait and do that in my next blog.