Experience with Self and Others

During the past two weeks, I have conducted experiments both with myself and with my family.  For my own experiment, I took twenty minutes every night before going to sleep to meditate, and also developed the habit to first count to ten in my head when dealing with a challenging situation.  This experiment took me out of my comfort zone as I am a very active person.  I also have a very defensive personality which makes me want to explain myself when engaged in an argument.  Also, when I receive new assignments or tasks, my first instinct would be to ask a lot of questions and get started on the task right away.  Therefore, keeping quiet and passive for even one second after receiving a new task would make me feel uncomfortable.  Furthermore, I choose this experiment because many of my peers and friends have this habit, and they’ve tried to talk me into this practice before.  However, I’ve always just thought that it is a waste of time.  I’ve been told many benefits of this practice, and by now I am somewhat moved by this idea.  Thus, I feel that this is a good opportunity for me to inspect and assess this activity.   For my experiment with others, I decided to conduct this with my family.  I started to involve my family into more things I do on a daily basis, including my academic, work as well as social life. I also take twenty minutes every day to help out with the chores and dishes.   Usually, I don’t like to share my personal life with the rest of my family, and I am usually too tired every night after I get back from work to update them on my day.  I felt that I shouldn’t waste time in that manner, and more sleep or leisure time would be of more value to me.   Also, my parents never expected me to do chores around the house because they wanted me to dedicate all my time to academics and work.  Therefore, I thought this would be a good experiment as I can incorporate family into my academics, so minimal homework and studying time would be lost.

        The practice of meditation really showed a positive impact on my life.  There are three major takeaways from this experiment:

1. Mediation helped put situations into perspective
2. Control of emotions and increase of social connections
3.  Decrease of anxiety which leads to a happier life

Firstly, mediation helped me put problems into perspective, and see the bigger picture of an issue.  Every day, I get overwhelmed by issues such as family, school and work.  Mediation helped me get mentally balanced and reflect back to my values, and put a more defined meaning to my daily activities.   I can connect myself back to my values and what I work for start to have more meaning to it.  I find that when I sit down quietly to reflect on an issue, I usually find that I typically magnified the issues at hand, and what I am dealing with is not as bad as I initially thought.  I agree that this does not solve my issues, but has definitely given my brain more capacity to think about the issue and put it into a more logical form.   Also, when I get a task that I don’t know how to do, instead of just start digging into the details of the problem and ask many questions, I would mediate first and think quietly for a while before asking anything.  I find that this way, I am able to make more sense of the tasks given and ask questions that are more valuable.  I find that by doing this, I can complete my tasks in a timely manner because minimal time would be wasted on irrelevant questions.  

Moreover, by mediating, I’ve learned that I am able to better control my emotion and thoughts.  This ultimately led to better communication with others, and being able to think about issues from different angles.  For example, after I get into a fight with a friend or family member, before explaining to them and tense things up even more, I would keep quiet, mediate and just not talk for 10 seconds to slowly absorb the situation.  After that, I find I am able to think clearer, and go about the issue in a more logical way.  I am able to take a step back, and think in the other person`s shoe.  For example, during the weekend, a biker on the street fell off his bike and scratched my car parked on the sideway.  Instead of becoming instantly furious at him, I kept quiet for ten seconds and during that time, I actually started to have different emotions (maybe he is having a bad day, and can`t concentrate on riding, and that he is also hurt from this situation).

Mediation has really got me to think of the good things in life, and kept my overall anxiety level down. During my mediation sessions at night, I reflect back on the day and what happened throughout the day.  I think about all of my blessings and all the positive things that happened to me.   This made me feel more motivated and puts me in a better mood, and I actually would look forward towards each day.  I don’t feel as tired as I normally do, and I would get more things done.

 Before, I just thought that mediation is a waste of time, and I like to get thing done as quick as possible. However, this experiment has really taken me to reassess the importance and benefits of mediation.   Moving forward, I would continue with this practice because it has brought me so many benefits.  It has got me moving faster in life, and become more efficient with my regular activities.  I am very glad that I choose this experiment, as I will not attempt this on a regular basis, and I regret already that I did not listen to my peers before and enjoy the benefits that mediation brings in the earlier stages of my life.