Mindfulness

"Unlike the exotic 'altered states of consciousness' that we read so
much about, mindfulness and mindlessness are so common that few of
us appreciate their importance or make use of their power to change
our lives. This book is about the price we pay for mindlessness: the psychological
and the physical costs. More important, it is about the benefits
of mindfulness. Those benefits are greater control over our lives,
wider choice, and making the seemingly impossible possible."
"When we are behaving mindlessly, that is to say, relying on categories
drawn in the past, endpoints to development seem fixed. We are then
like projectiles moving along a predetermined course. When we are
mindful, we see all sorts of choices and generate new endpoints."

Have you ever said "excuse me" to a store mannequin or written
a cheque in January with the previous year's date? For most of
us the answer is probably "yes," but these small mistakes, Ellen
Langer believes, are the tip of a mindlessness iceberg. A Harvard psychology
professor, her research into rigidity of mind led to observations
about mental fluidity, or mindfulness.
One of the great themes of self-help literature is the need to be free
of unconsciously accepted habits and norms. Langer's classic shows
how we can actually accomplish this. The book is in the best tradition
of western scientific research, filled with the results of fascinating
experiments that should appeal to those readers who enjoy Emotional
Intelligence or Learned Optimism.
Who or what is a mindful person? Langer suggests that their qualities
will include:
? Ability to create new categories.
? Openness to new information.
? Awareness of more than one perspective.
? Attention to process (doing) rather than outcome (results).
? Trust of intuition.
New categories
Langer says that we live and experience reality in a conceptual form.
We don't see things afresh and anew every time we look at them;
instead, we create categories and let things fall into them, which is a
more convenient way of dealing with the world. Apart from the smaller
things, such as defining a vase as a Japanese vase, a flower as an
orchid, or a person as a boss, there are the wider categorizations under
which we live, including religions, ideologies, and systems of government.
Each gives us a level of psychological certainty and saves us from the effort of constantly challenging our own beliefs. We divide animals
into "pets" and "livestock" so that we can feel OK loving one and eating
the other, for example.
Mindlessness results when we don't know that the categories to
which we subscribe are categories and have accepted them as our own
without really thinking. Creating new categories, and reassessing old
ones, is mindfulness. Or, as William James put it:
"Genius ... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an
unhabitual way."
New information
Langer talks about "premature cognitive commitments," which are like
photographs in which meaning, rather than motion, is frozen. To evoke
the dangers of false, frozen images, she reminds us of Miss Havisham
in Dickens' Great Expectations, who still wore the wedding dress she
had donned the day she was abandoned at the altar, but which now
hung like faded curtains over her aged body.
At a more prosaic level, a child may know an elderly person who is
grumpy and will hold on to a picture of "old people are grumps," taking
it with him into adulthood. In not bothering to replace that picture
with different images of later life, the person is locked into a false perception
that is likely to be reflected in their own experience. They will
turn into an old grump too.
This of course applies to other aspects of life: If we are mindful, we
will be less willing to take "genes" as an excuse for our behavior or
lack of action. Just because a parent never rose above middle management
level, we don't assume that we couldn't become president of the
company.
Perspective and context
Mindlessness occurs when people accept information in a context-free
way. The ability to transcend context, Langer says, is the mark of
mindfulness and creativity.
She notes that much pain is context dependent. Getting a bruise out
on the football field will matter much less to us than if we sustain one
at home. Imagination is the key to perceiving differently. The Birdman of Alcatraz, stuck in a cell for over 40 years, managed to make his life
a rich one by his care of injured birds.
The personal development implication of these vignettes is clear: We
can put up with anything as long as it is within a positive context.
Without a defined personal vision, life might seem like a mass of constant
worries and annoyances; with one, everything is put into perspective.
As Nietzsche said, if you have a "why," you can put up with any
"how."
Process orientation
Another key characteristic of mindfulness is a focus on process before
outcome, or "doing rather than achieving." We look at a scientist's
breakthrough and say "genius," as if what he or she discovered happened
overnight. With the rare exception, like Einstein's great year of
discovery, most scientific success is the result of years of work that can
be broken down into steps. A college student looks at a professor's
book in awe, thinking "I could never write something that good,"
assuming it must be higher intelligence, not years of study and work,
that delivered up the weighty tome. These are all faulty comparisons.
The process orientation requires us to ask not "Can I do it?" but
"How can I do it?" This "not only sharpens our judgment, it makes us
feel better about ourselves," says Langer.
Intuition
Intuition is an important path to mindfulness, because its very use
requires ignoring old habits and expectations to try something that may
go against reason. Yet the best scientists are intuitive, many spending
years methodically validating what appeared to them in a flash of intuitive
truth.
The amazing thing about mindfulness and intuition is that they are
both relatively effortless: "Both are reached by escaping the heavy,
single-minded striving of most ordinary life." But intuition will give us
valuable information about our survival and success; we cannot explain
where it comes from, but we ignore it at our cost. The mindful person
will go with what works, even if it doesn't make sense.
Final comments
In essence, mindfulness is about preserving our individuality. By choosing
the mindset of limited resources, by opting to focus on outcomes
rather than doing (process), and by making faulty comparisons with
others, we become little more than robots. The true individual is characterized
by openness to the new, is always reclassifying the meaning of
knowledge and experience, and has the ability to see their daily actions
in a bigger, consciously chosen perspective.
Langer recognizes the parallels with eastern religion in her work, for
example the Buddhist understanding that meditation is about enjoying
a mindful state that leads to "right action." Mindfulness, Langer hopes,
has the same effect, and therefore has important implications for the
health of society, not merely the individual. The beauty of mindfulness
is that it is not work; in fact, because it leads to greater control of our
own thinking, it is, to use Langer's word, "exhilarating," in a quiet
way creating excitement about what is possible.
Its ideas may seem difficult, but Mindfulness was written for a popular
audience and is not long. It may be more understated than most
self-help books, but its insights tend to stay in the mind.