Mindfulness

Premature cognitive commitments lead us to close ourselves off to the possibilities of the moment and thus to live in a state of mindlessness that at the very least prevents us from living as fully and creatively as possible and has innumerable negative consequences for our lives. "Repetition, premature cognitive commitment, belief in limited resources, the notion of linear time, education for outcome, and the powerful influence of context-influence each day of our lives."

That's kind of it in a nutshell. If we strive to live more mindfully--to be open to new perspectives and orientations and categories--then we can live more creatively, healthfully, and fully present in the moment. Langer then takes 250 pages to explain what this means, giving a lot of examples from her research in social psychology and explaining primarily the effects of mindlessness. The most famous examples probably comes from her work with the elderly, whether in nursing homes or in putting people into new contexts. Elderly in nursing homes are more satisfied and actually live longer, according to her research, when then have more responsibility and control over their lives and are treated less like patients by staff. Men who were asked to imagine themselves as 20 years younger actually looked and acted younger at the end of a week when their contextual thinking was changed to the environment of their earlier lives. -- irreversible" signs of aging were altered as a result of psychological intervention."

I was lead to Langer's book by Gallagher's book, Rapt, and it underlies many of the assumptions in Rapt. Again, I want to believe that I can continue to function fully in my life by remaining open to possibilities, but I'm not really sure that it's not a lot more complicated than that. I was also hoping for something a little more practical, something with more useful suggestions. Also, Langer makes careful to make distinctions between her concept of Mindfulness and that of Buddhist meditation or vipassana, and I was looking more for similarities and comparisons.

Author: Langer, Ellen

Date Published: 1989

Length: 256 pp

electronic print