Mindful, But For The Right Reason

One of the more vapid trends within the legal profession is mindfulness, a word that conjures up images of, well, nothing much.  Oh, the horrible stress of being a lawyer, and so a cottage industry of happy-talking folks has arisen to take you away from your personal misery.  How wonderful that must be.

People are wasting valuable thinking time on meditation and mindfulness and should stop trying to clear their heads, an Oxford University academic has claimed.

Theodore Zeldin said too many people were avoiding using their brains and instead escaping into a state of blank mental oblivion.

Zeldin makes an assumption that may not be valid, that people were using their brains before “escaping into a state of blank mental oblivion.”

“It’s important not to think just about yourself,” Dr Zeldin told the Hay Festival. “You think that trying to avoid things by doing exercises which free the mind from thought and will empty out minds.

“I think mindfulness and meditation are bad for people, I absolutely think that. People should be thinking.”

Or as Sir Joshua Reynolds said, “there is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.” This isn’t a new concept.

Thinking is hard. Thinking can be unpleasant and stressful.  It can give you headaches and make you cry. Boo hoo.

However, if you do think, if you do exercise your mind regularly, there is nothing wrong with taking the occasional break and entering that place of “blank mental oblivion.” The trick is that it’s a vacation house, not your new residence.  And if you have nothing to take a vacation from, then you have no reason to go there.

But that’s not what the fashion industry of mindfulness tells us.  They cry for our pain, feel sad for the depression we endure just by being us, and tell us that we are entitled to be happy.  Mindfulness, they say, will make us happier.  Mindfulness will make us nicer people. Mindfulness will make us feel better about ourselves and the unhappiness we feel.

“One of the beliefs of this time is you’ve got to be yourself and develop your own potential, but only thinking of oneself is a feeble and cowardly activity.

“Our potential on our own is very limited. We go to these motivational speakers and they say you can be anything you want to be. You can’t. Your potential is very limited.”

Well, that puts a damper on things.  Except that when it comes to practicing law, recognizing our limits, as well as our potential, allows us to come to grips with the reality that nobody created lawyers for the purpose of our being mindlessly happy with our lot.  We’re no more entitled to a world without harshness than are our clients.

So how does mindfulness fit in with the practice of law for those who aren’t insipid, whiny, narcissists, concerned only with their own welfare?  Stephanie West Allen brings the point home when she learned that her law school, Santa Clara, had opened a mindfulness room in the library.

I was happy to see that Santa Clara Law now has a room in the library for law students, staff, and faculty. Its purpose?

It is our hope that students utilize this space for silent meditation, prayer, and reflection.  A number of studies have demonstrated the value of mindfulness and meditation and its connection to academic achievement.  We aspire to make mindfulness a practice at Santa Clara Law that is open to everyone regardless of religious affiliation or background.

When I saw that the only benefits of these practices mentioned in the writeup were academic achievement and decompressing, I was initially disappointed.

Stephanie is hardly antagonistic toward the concept of mindfulness, per se, but is deeply concerned with the sham of it pandering to the sensitivities of those who expect the world to be all about their feelings.

And then I saw the SCU Law writeup ended with the wonderful words of The Prayer of Saint Francis and I smiled. “… grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console …  .” Yep, that can be a benefit of reflective practices!

There is nothing wrong with working hard and then taking a well-earned breather.  This is a stressful job, carrying the weight of other people’s lives on our shoulders in a system designed to crush their souls, and ours.  Contrary to Dr. Zeldin, if you’re practicing law right, you are thinking. A lot. And anyone who does so will benefit from a release of the stress that builds up.

Whether that release will be found in meditation, yoga or a cold one is up to you.  For me, it’s writing, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to do you any good.  To each his own.  If you feel the need to pay someone to tell you to relax, you probably have deeper issues than the need for stress release.

But Stephanie’s point is that its value isn’t derived from the fact that it makes you happy. Sorry, but it’s not all about you.  Rather, its value is that your clear head allows you to be a better lawyer, a better advocate for your clients, and fulfill your duty to them.

Not so much seek To be consoled as to console.

If someone is trying to sell you the snake oil of happiness, then either they don’t get it or they assume you don’t.  If your purpose is to clear your head so that you can get back into the well and serve your client better, then you’ve earned a rest.  It’s not about your happiness, but theirs.

23 thoughts on “Mindful, But For The Right Reason

  1. Bartleby the Scrivener

    I’d like to say thank you.

    Thank you to those who work incredibly hard to help pull people out of or through what is likely the worst time of their lives.

    Thank you to those who help the powerless navigate the complexity of a legal system that is hostile to their rights, and stand in defense of those who would otherwise be defenseless.

    Thank you to those who fight the good fight in protecting our liberties and doing their very best to reverse or slow the encroachment of government intrusions on our rights.

    …and to you in particular, sir…thank you for spending your recreation time to write and help make us aware of critically important trends in our justice system.

    So I say thank you to the lot of you. Your work makes my life inestimably better, and I certainly appreciate it.

    While I doubt this comment further illuminates or adds a new look at what you wrote, I hope it is nonetheless acceptable. If it is not, I apologize.

  2. L

    “But Stephanie’s point is that it’s value isn’t derived from the it makes you happy. Sorry, but it’s not all about you. Rather, it’s value is that your clear head allows you to be a better lawyer, a better advocate for your clients, and fulfill your duty to them.”

    Can you clarify? Are you saying lawyers shouldn’t do things that make them happy for the sake of being happy, but should only do things that make them happy if that happiness in turn will make them better lawyers? Does this apply to everything?

    Is there maybe an acceptable middle ground between being an insipid whiny narcissist who expects the world to be all about my feelings, and being an ascetic monk who takes no action unless it benefits my clients?

    No disrespect to you if you think the practice of law should be a life of monastic hardship. I just want to clarify that that’s what you’re saying, because that’s what it sounds like.

    1. SHG Post author

      Fair point. Let me clarify by saying that “marketing” a shtick to lawyers under the guise that it’s a lawyerish thing to do because being a lawyer is so depressing and, by the purchase of this snake oil, it will turn you into a happy lawyer, is misguided.

      This isn’t about some vague antagonism to happiness, per se, or happiness as a lawyer, but to pandering to the concept that we, as lawyers, are entitled to happiness, and our happiness is a core function of our being a lawyer. When the pitch is that the real point of being lawyers is to be happy, it’s nonsensical and misguided.

      1. L

        Thank you for the clarification. Now that I understand what you’re saying, FWIW, I think I quite agree.

  3. Village Idiot

    “Turn on” meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. “Tune in” meant interact harmoniously with the world around you — externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. “Drop Out” meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean “Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.” — Timothy Leary

    Ohhhh…. Well… to my defense, Wikipedia is a relatively new fact-checking system….

  4. Aurelian

    Theodore Zeldin, by characterizing mindfulness as “avoiding using [the] brain and escaping into a state of blank mental oblivion,” is demonstrating comprehensive ignorance of the subject. As a Buddhist monk of 16 years, I am tempted but will refrain from saying anything stronger.

    I do agree with you, however, that the “mindfulness movement” is over-hyped and marketed as if it will solve all one’s inner problems. Practicing meditation and mindfulness hasn’t made me happy, but it has helped me to become more accepting of my own flaws and those of others, and it has enabled me to have a measure of contentment in my life.

    1. SHG Post author

      I think Zeldin is talking more about the trendy flavor than the underlying concept. That said, I agree that he still overstates the case.

    2. L

      As someone who has been exposed to a fair amount of Buddhism, I was pretty sure that Zeldin was completely screwing up the concept of mindfulness. Glad to hear an actual practicing Buddhist weigh in on the subject.

      1. SHG Post author

        Again, do not confuse Buddhism with trendy palliatives, whether in method or purpose. And definitely not in price.

    3. David M.

      May I ask why you chose the name “Aurelian”? I can hardly think of someone less mindful.

    4. Wrongway

      “Practicing meditation and mindfulness hasn’t made me happy, but it has helped me to become more accepting of my own flaws and those of others, and it has enabled me to have a measure of contentment in my life.”

      Yup, I’m content with stuff like my hair falling out, the wrinkles, the aches & pains.. but I’m still here..

      hmm.. maybe I’m a Buddhist, Agnostic, (not to mention an asshole..) at heart..

      Also, I didn’t know Mindfulness was a thing, or even a word.. (oh the scars from a public skool system..)

  5. Larry Jelley

    “Dr Zeldin told the Hay Festival”

    Are we missing some context here. I did not read the linked articles, but is this some type of prestigious law conference that the good doctor was addressing?

    1. Fubar

      It’s like Woodstock except it’s more mental.
      Its audience, like one big yentl,
      With wide open ears
      Believes what it hears.
      The real world is quite incidental!

  6. John Barleycorn

    Stop thinking without trying and leave your mind alone now and again and let it do its own thing. This also works when trying to figure out how many billing hours make up the work week.

    Not my place here, at all, to comment on this post but isn’t really odd and peculiar that being a lawyer and, specifically a CDL, requires you to see through the sham-flim-flam of things and in the end that is the attraction and perhaps the only thing that keeps successful CDL’s returning to put their hand in the fire?

    You should seriously consider pushing an apprentice based threshold even if it means mutiny.

    Not for everyone, but everything will probably be alright in the morning.

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