Happy New Year, everybody. This is Sam Harris. As another year begins, many of us will resolve to exercise more and sleep better and eat more sanely. Of course, these are all good things to do. But there's a prior commitment, whether one makes it consciously or not,

that will determine the quality of everything else.

And that's the commitment to take care of your mind.

As has been widely discussed, we are living through a all-out war for our attention.

Most of the digital economy has been engineered

to keep you clicking and scrolling and sharing

and doing these things in a continuous state of agitation or outrage.

And even when the mood is different,

let's say you've been captured by something genuinely amusing,

that cat sleeping on top of that dog, sleeping

on top of that tiger.

The result is now a new normal of perpetual distraction and fragmentation.

We start a conversation and then reach for our phones.

We sit down to read, this is a book we really wanted to read

and find that we just can't help but check our messages.

We watch a film while simultaneously scrolling some digital timeline.

We barely live in the vicinity of our bodies anymore.

And this has become entirely normal to be elsewhere, barely live in the vicinity of our bodies anymore.

And this has become entirely normal to be elsewhere, almost all of the time.

We want meaningful experience, and yet we are training ourselves to avoid it.

Well, this is why mindfulness matters.

Mindfulness isn't just something to add to your list of commitments.

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