Are you into mindfulness?
Why?
Have you been told it will help you?
Do what?
De-stress and then refocus on your job?
What about the things that are stressful about your job? How will mindfulness actually make those go away?
Oh, it won’t?
If you have a boring job, bad boss, or are constantly afraid to get fired, mindfulness will not fix that.
Hmmm… then can I ask you another question? Who is mindfulness really serving?
That’s right. Your bosses.
There’s a reason that Amazon is installing mindfulness closets inside its warehouses.
“I feel like living wages and better working conditions are better than a mobile despair closet” says writer Talia Levin.
As Ronald Purser shares in his book, McMindfulness, it’s the perfect capitalist spirituality. Don’t think, just be with your breath, then go back to work like a good little robot.
Frankly, I am done with mindfulness.
Why?
Because it “shifts the burden of psychological stress and structural insecurities onto individual employees, frames this as a personal problem, and makes mindfulness the answer.” -Purser
Mindfulness attempts to place us in an ahistorical present where all we have to do is “pay attention to our breath” (and never think about the systems that created the rage that we feel.)
What if mindfulness was bullshit?