After my last blog, a friend suggested that if I really wanted to be healthy, I should try meditation.  No way.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not opposed to meditation.  If that works for you, go for it friend. 

People who know me well realize my two speeds.  Off (asleep) and full speed ahead.  You’ll note I did not in any way imply that full speed ahead means fast.  It just means what it is.  Full speed.  At my age, if I slowed down to meditate, you could wake me up four hours later.  Unless, of course, it’s during my normal nighttime sleep.  Then I’ll wake up every five minutes and get up every two or three hours.  But, I digress.  Back to meditation.  (Twice now in the course of writing this, I have misspelled meditation.  Both times I wrote “medication”.  Think I’m trying to tell me something?)

I’ve read the ads for meditation, and I like them.  Are you seeking inner peace?  Wanting to find purpose and meaning in life?  Another reads “skilled instructors with personal life-long practices will help guide you.”    That worries me a tad.  I also have “personal life-long practices.”  They never defined “in what” they have these practices. 

One advocate said after deep meditation, he felt connected with a part of himself that he had lost for years.  Whoa!.  I’m kind of thinking the things I lost years ago might be best lost.  But, if the practice works for that gentleman, I really think that’s great.  I might even be envious if I thought there was any way I could meditate.

For those of you who practice meditation, I don’t mean to offend.  And, I certainly don’t know anything about the practice or the position you take when meditating.  But, here’s my visual image of me doing it.  I’m sitting on a very, very soft rug.  (Sorry, but I don’t do thin mats on a hard floor.)  I’m sitting Indian style with my hands resting gently on my knees.  I relax.  I breathe deeply and slowly.  Then I glance down and see my belly.  Actually before that, I feel my belly rolling over the waistband of my pants.  Then I start laughing.  Rather than feeling peaceful, I feel fat and in need of changing positions.

I immediately go to my favorite chair.  Two hours later, I wake up. 

Hopefully someone, one day, will explain to me how stupid I am. (It’s been an hour since that’s been done.)  However, if I close my eyes in the middle of the day, I’m asleep.  On second thought, I guess I do meditate during most meetings I attend in the afternoons.   

The other question I have for me:  do I really want to get in touch with my inner self?  On any given day, with the best of them, I can pout, be moody, gripe and be a general nuisance.  I’m not sure inner-selfing is always such a good thing.

Meditation is said to help you be in control of your life.  I certainly don’t need that aspect.  I’ve been married nearly 40 years.  My wife tells me what to do, and when I don’t she says, “do it or die.”  That’s pretty much all the control I can handle.

New research proves that meditation reduces stress, blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety, increases mental abilities, focus, concentration, longevity, and on and on.  I very much would like that.  But, I can’t make up my mind just yet.  I’ll sleep on it.