Experimental June: week two

It’s a very warm morning on Sunday the 15th and I just got up from my meditation cushion that I never failed to meet once since I started this experimental June. The return to meditation is going wonderfully and that pleases me greatly. I missed meditation, I know it’s good for my mental well-being and yet I managed to distance myself from the practice for no other reason than that I am my worst enemy—and also an idiot. This week I managed to meditate either two or three times a day every single day—except for today, but the day is still long—and the health app is reporting 27 minutes on average over the past 7 days. I’m pleased with that. I’m also happy that my shift in mindset is still present and I still feel the desire to sit quietly and observe my mind. I’m also starting to feel that some of the sessions are too short but I plan to go through the entire introductory course anyway, even though it’s something I have done already in the past. I thought it was a good idea to start again from scratch. By the way, I’m using the Waking Up App if you’re wondering which course I’m going through.

And speaking of apps, screen time on my phone this second week has gone back up a bit but that’s mostly a function of me spending way too much time on Telegram for a variety of reasons. I was down 39% on week one and I’m up 14% this week. But that’s ok. It’s been a weird week from a mental health standpoint and phone usage reflected that. That said though, still no podcasts and videos. I did read two articles but both were sent to me as part of conversations and that’s all I consumed for personal reasons in terms of digital content. I did have to read a bunch of stuff for work but that is, well, work.

And speaking of reading, I did finish two books this month and I hit my—albeit very conservative—goal of reading 12 books this year. That is something else I’m quite happy about.

As for output, writing on the blog has slowed down but that’s just a function of me working on a lot of other stuff and there are only so many hours in the day I can spend in front of a screen.

Overall, I’m overjoyed with how this experiment is going and I’m currently thinking about which lasting changes I should make to keep some of these positive effects around for the long run.