After hacking and slashing my way through the popular Concept of minimalism and its wondrous effects on focus [spoiler: I disagreed], I must now turn my attention to Mindfulness.

I suppose you could argue that there’s no ‘must’ about it. I could quite easily ignore the current popularity of the concept and go on my happy, oblivious way. And you’d be right. But you see, I’ve been infected like everyone else.

Isn’t Mindfulness a good thing?

Sure. Did you know that if you search ‘mindfulness’ on Google (in the UK, at least), the first result you get is an NHS website? There is some evidence towards its efficacy at treating depression, and that’s fantastic. The more options for people who are suffering, the better (having been one of them more than once, I say this with every sincerity).

So I should point out that this is not an attack on those who quietly enjoy mindfulness or gain great benefit from it themselves. I don’t object to the concept in the slightest. The idea of taking the time to notice, to experience, to enjoy the moment is perfectly lovely.

What I object to is the tyranny of the mindful who must bring all those who have not yet embraced the philosophy to ‘enlightenment’. What I object to is the sudden influx of branding and monetisation on what is, essentially, a concept. The idea that it’s not something you can just do, that you must pay to unlock the super secret special key to being mindful.

Branding the unbrandable

Mindfulness is not exactly a new idea. The phrase “stop and smell the flowers/roses” has been around a good long while. Hell, Ringo Starr has an album of that title, released in 1981. The same principle applies — take time to truly appreciate something, a moment, a flower, without rushing or thinking about what to make for dinner.

But now we must call it by its new name, mindfulness, a brand of sorts. You can’t just ‘try to be in the moment’. Now you have to ‘practise mindfulness’. You’re invited to pay for books, courses, apps, and teachers to make sure you do it ‘right’.

Adult colouring books (of which I am a unabashed fan) are now emblazoned with titles and stickers touting them as ‘colouring for mindfulness’. Amazon sells overpriced jars of little bits of paper, which somehow support you in your mindfulness journey. The Guardian recently published a story about ‘mindful sex’ (seriously).

You can buy special cushions, because apparently the sofa is not mystical enough to be truly mindful. You can buy scavenger hunt kits for kids to help them ‘experience nature’ in a way they presumably couldn’t if they didn’t have special mindfulness cards to lead them.

As soon as mindfulness became a thing, it became something people could make money out of.

And as soon as people start spending money on something so nebulous as ‘paying attention’, they must sing its praises so that the rest of us either subscribe or accept that we are somehow less. They must convert us to justify their own expenditure. It’s not enough to feel a benefit yourself, you have to convince everyone to join you, as though you’d signed up to some terrible pyramid scheme.

Mindful in your own way

As I said at the start, mindfulness itself is not the issue. And if you can avoid buying into the special equipment and following ‘the one true way’, it can have mental health benefits and improve positivity and happiness. Sounds perfect. But you don’t need to open your wallet to get those benefits, you can do it yourself. If you need some guidance, you can find infinite swathes of (free) information online to help you find your own path.

And if, like me, you’d quite like to be able to be ‘in the moment’ without having to label it, you can do that too. You just have to sidestep the tyranny of the fanatics.

I once, in mixed company, mentioned really enjoying the sunset and taking time out to sit and appreciate it. I described it as a lovely moment of peace and just being. I was immediately jumped on by someone who tried to claim my moment in the name of mindfulness.

I couldn’t just have a nice experience, it had to be mindfulness in action. Contrary as I am, this insistence that I shoehorn my experiences into the correctly-labelled box makes me want to eschew mindfulness and all it stands for.

As ever, it’s the people who embrace a concept to the exclusion of all else that ruin it for the casually interested. As opposed to those of us who just want to enjoy a nice moment without naming it, without giving credit to anything other than the moment itself. Without having to train, or do a course, or buy an app in order to have those moments be valid.

What if I don’t want to be mindful?

You may be unsurprised, especially if you read my ‘maximalism’ article, to learn that sometimes I don’t want to be mindful. Sometimes I want to embrace the chaos that is the inside of my head.

There can be a joy in daydreaming rather than being mindful. There can be pleasure in rushing, arriving pink-cheeked and out of breath, having had the opportunity for nothing more than paying attention when crossing the road. There’s a heady breathlessness that comes from being caught in my own thoughts.

For truly special moments, of course I want to savour them. But I can think of nothing more boring than wanting to savour every moment. And I don’t believe anyone who says they do. That bus journey sat behind the guy who just won’t stop sniffing, his music too loud and bleeding from his headphones. That interminable wait in the waiting room at the doctor. That tooth extraction. That epic traffic jam. These moments don’t need to be experienced in the beautiful fullness of mindfulness. They’re to be escaped.

Now, I suppose one could meditate through such experiences, thereby claiming them as a form of mindfulness. And being able to wait patiently, despite the environment, is a skill indeed. But it’s a skill that can be as readily mastered through mental distraction and wandering thoughts as by meditating mindfully.

I’m not an especially zen person. I get frustrated, I get impatient. I get snippy and sarcastic. And yet I’m able to be pleasant and polite, engaged and focused, calm and rational. All without every spending a penny on mindfulness. In fact, I manage to be mindful all by myself.

The Tyranny of Mindfulness was originally published in The Ascent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.