BackWhy is it so difficult to be happy?
Because the mathematics of mindfulness, the key ingredient to happiness, is loaded against us
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As I begin to write this piece, I am about 24 hours away from anchoring a session on high performance with the world’s top runners. They would have just come back from participating in La Ultra, the world’s cruellest marathon. It demands they run 333km in three days across the Himalayas. And by the time you get to read this, I would have shared a video of my conversation with them on Founding Fuel. My gut tells me that by the end of the evening, it’s going to change a part of me. Because I intend to figure out from them what mindfulness is all about.
If you think mindfulness is as easy as keeping an eye on everything around you, allow me to put into perspective how difficult it actually is. To begin with, consider this stunning set of factoids Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi presents in his outstanding book Flow:
• Our central nervous system is capable of processing at the most seven bits of information at a given moment.
• The shortest time it takes to discriminate between one set of bits and another is about a quarter of a second.
• Therefore, it is possible to process at the most 126 bits of information per second, or 7,560 per minute, or almost half-a-million per hour.
• Over a lifetime of 70 years, and counting 16 hours of waking time each day, this amounts to about 185 billion bits of information. It is out of this total that everything in our life must come—every thought, memory, feeling or action. It seems like a lot. But in reality, it isn’t.
• To understand what another person is saying, we must process 40 bits of information each second.
• If we assume the upper limit of our capacity to be 126 bits per second, it follows that to understand what three people are saying simultaneously is theoretically possible. But only if you manage to keep out every other thought or sensation. That means ignoring their expressions, wondering why they are saying what they are, or noticing what they are wearing.
It is only appropriate that you ask me why I am sharing all of this information a few hours before I get into a conversation with a bunch of crazy runners. And what do I stand to gain from it?
To my mind, the trick to high performance lies in mindfulness. When you are mindful, you get into a flow. And when in a flow, happiness follows. But like the numbers above illustrate, being mindful isn’t easy. The reason why these runners can go these mind-numbing distances is because they have mastered the art of being mindful—get into a flow and be happy there.
Rajat Chauhan, a columnist at Mint and race director of the La Ultra, amply demonstrated this to me. It all started out when I confessed to him that I nurture a dream to run the full marathon. The most I have done is the half marathon. He promptly agreed to train me. But only if I agreed to do what is considered unconventional by running coaches—practise mindfulness.
Among the first things he asked me to do is watch the following video and answer the questions embedded in it. I insist you watch it before you read any further. Else whatever follows may sound like gibberish.
Having done that, he had a set of instructions for me.
• Run 45 minutes (Disclaimer: Some place down the line, it got too tough and I dropped the ball and stopped training. I cannot run two minutes now without running out of breath)
• Keep count of women wearing a blue top
• Keep count of men wearing black footwear
• Keep count of kids wearing shorts
• Maintain the correct posture
• Follow breathing techniques as prescribed by him
Because he had put me through the drill on technique, I thought I had a fair idea of what to do and expect. But what eventually happened surprised me.
In the warm-up to the run, I could keep track of men wearing black footwear—20-odd to be precise. I spotted a gaggle of children, counted five of them. None of them were wearing shorts. And I saw one woman in a blue top.
Warm-up done, I started my run. I thought this is going to be a “mindful" one where I would follow instructions to the T. That the exercise was hopelessly complicated hit me when I heard a bus screech to a halt and the driver yell at me. People were staring at me as if I was a weirdo in a reverie. In doing all of what Rajat had asked me to do, I didn’t see the damn thing coming. I missed the bloody gorilla in the room.
I quickly changed my mind and thought I ought to move to some place safer, quieter, where I wouldn’t have to run into traffic on the road. I broke my run and hopped across to Aarey Colony, a green lung in this otherwise congested Mumbai.
By now, I had counted 21 (or was it 23?) men wearing black footwear. There weren’t any women around. I thought life would be easier now because all I had to do was focus on technique and breathing, and keep track of the odd person on the road.
Sure enough, it was easier. The air felt fresher. I saw young boys playing cricket. Counted two of them wearing shorts. A few women passed me by. None of them were in blue tops. But even in this solitude, it was getting difficult. I could hear Rajat’s words ringing.
• Breathe to the count of 4-2-4
• Lean forward 10 degrees
• Hips ought to oscillate like a pendulum
• Listen to the sound of your feet. Are they landing right?
• And keep count of everything
Just about 10 minutes into the exercise and a little over 1.5km into my run, this exercise in watching everything started to take its toll.
Now it started to dawn on me why “mindfulness" isn’t easy. And why it ought to be practised. I could feel the sheer exhaustion of it all creeping in. The easier thing to do was forget the instructions and focus on just one thing. Keep running for all of the 45 minutes Rajat asked me to.
But this time around when I shifted into that mode, it just didn’t feel right. The body was straight, the hips weren’t oscillating, and my thighs were doing the running. The technique was all wrong. It was physically exhausting. Keeping track of men passing me by and counting the women wearing blue tops was beginning to take its toll. I broke my run again and walked a few minutes wondering what in the devil’s name was going on.
I have known this place for years and have been a frequent visitor here. Just then, I spotted a lovely patch to run on. Once again, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure how I had missed this spot for all those years. The surface was flat with a sand cover, unlike the tarred incline I had been practising on earlier.
I thought the running would be easier now. But now my head refused to stay straight—the way Rajat insisted it ought to. Instead, it kept bobbing. In spite of no people around to observe, just getting the technique right was beginning to get stressful.
I broke the run and walked a while. It took me a while to make peace with the fact that I had failed to follow the instructions. I figured what is seemingly simple isn’t as simple. I knew I would have to sit down and introspect on why it was so difficult.
Csikszentmihalyi’s book offers a pointer: Happiness, he writes, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy... The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind.
Insight in hand, I have pleaded with Rajat to give me a second chance—to start training me again. He has agreed. I have promised not to let him down again.
Charles Assisi is co-founder and director at Founding Fuel, a digitally led media and learning platform for entrepreneurs. He tweets on @c_assisi
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