The Art of Not Giving a Damn (Except When You Still Do)
A meditation memoir in ten petty grievances
I used to be a petty tyrant of minor grievances.
A walking, breathing collection of eye rolls and heavy sighs, cataloging every small injustice the universe hurled my way. You didn’t wave when I let you merge? How dare you. Someone’s watching the light turn green with the intensity of an Olympic sprinter at the starting blocks and laying on their horn the nanosecond it changes? We live in the suburbs, Karen, where exactly do you need to be?
I was exhausting. Mostly to myself.
But let me back up to March 2018, to a conversation with Charlie Johnson—a vendor of mine who I’d known for years but didn’t really know, you know? We were at an event, doing that thing people do where they ask how you’re doing and you’re supposed to say “fine” even when you’re not.
Charlie asked about my dad’s Alzheimer’s. He already knew Dad was years into his battle, which meant he was asking a real question, not a pleasantry. So I gave him a real answer. Something like, “He’s okay, but I’m not—it’s getting harder and harder.”
Charlie listened. Actually listened, in that rare way where you can tell someone isn’t just waiting for their turn to talk. Then he asked if I’d ever tried meditation.
I didn’t laugh in his face, but the idea was laughable. Meditation? Who has the time? And also, I had a very specific image of the kind of person who meditates, and that person wore stretch pants and grew their own kombucha and definitely wasn’t me. It felt too “out there.” Too woo-woo for a guy who gets annoyed by speakerphone conversations in Panera.
But I listened right back. And the more Charlie talked—explaining what meditation actually was, how it worked, why it might help—the more I considered it.
Okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t consider it. I started meditating that very day.
Because things were definitely getting harder. The emotional weight of watching my dad slip away while he was still sitting right in front of me. The physical exhaustion of caregiving. The complicated grief of losing someone in slow motion. The burden was growing, and I was running out of ways to carry it.
That was March 2018. Within a year, I’d changed jobs and Dad was in Assisted Living. The timing, in hindsight, coincided perfectly with taking on more stress and navigating even more complicated emotions. I needed something. Meditation became that something.
It didn’t save my life—but it changed it. For the better. Like, way better.
And here’s where it gets interesting, in that mundane, everyday kind of way that actually matters most: Meditation didn’t just help me process the big stuff. It started chipping away at all the small stuff too. The petty annoyances. The minor injustices that used to rent space in my head, completely free of charge.
I made a list recently. Ten things that used to make my blood pressure spike, my jaw clench, my inner monologue spiral into a TED Talk nobody asked for. Ten things that meditation has somehow, miraculously, helped me release back into the wild where they belong.
The Ten Things I (Mostly) Stopped Sweating:
1. When you let someone cut in or go ahead of you while driving and they don’t wave “thanks.”
This one used to send me. I’d just performed an act of roadway kindness, a small gesture of human decency in our metal boxes of rage, and you couldn’t lift one hand in acknowledgment? I’d narrate their moral failings for the next three miles. Now? I let them in and immediately forget they exist. Namaste, ungrateful stranger.
2. People who beep as soon as the light changes green…in the suburbs.
Listen, if we were in Manhattan trying to make a living, I’d get it. But we’re in Massachusetts. Your Pilates class can wait an extra 1.2 seconds while I ease off the brake. This used to make me want to put my car in park and have a conversation about patience. Now I just... go. Revolutionary.
3. People who routinely listen to their cell phone conversations on speakerphone in public places.
Okay, I’ll come back to this one.
4. Watching a taped version of Saturday Night Live and having to sit through ten “did you know” celebrity bits during each commercial break.
So, it’s actually called “The More You Know“ (TMYK). You know it, right? The public service initiative that uses NBCUniversal celebrities and platforms to promote positive social change. It’s an outstanding campaign, only quite repetitive throughout the hour-long commercial breaks. After the first round of hearing them, Coleen and I tend to mute the TV until the show returns.
5. People who don’t put their audio on silent while on a Zoom call.
The dog barking. The construction. The keyboard clicking that sounds like a tap-dancing centipede. It used to make me irrationally angry, like they were personally attacking my eardrums. How is the speaker not yelling at them to mute themselves? Now, I feel sorry for them for being clueless and lacking self-awareness.
6. Cooking, realizing I forgot something at the store, and have to get it.
This was a personal crisis every single time. The recipe was ruined. The meal was destroyed, and the absence of one ingredient derailed my entire evening. Now? I either improvise or I get it without the internal drama. Sometimes I even enjoy the second trip. Who even am I anymore?
7. Waiting two years between TV series for the new season.
Remember when we had to wait a week between episodes? Now we wait years for seven episodes of a show we love, and I used to spiral about it as if it were a betrayal. Now I... wait. Or watch something else. Turns out there’s a lot of TV.
8. Daylight Saving Time.
Why do we still do this? I mean, genuinely, why? It doesn’t bother me anymore, but it does seem profoundly silly. Like a collective agreement to be confused twice a year for no reason. But whatever. I adjust my clocks and move on.
9. Forgetting my phone when I leave the house.
Used to be an emergency. A full U-turn situation. A minor panic attack about all the things I might miss in the next 45 minutes. Now? It’s nice. I’m unreachable. I’m free. I’m a person who exists without a screen. It’s almost meditative. (See what I did there?)
10. Forgetting my phone charger when I’m travelling.
There isn’t a weekend trip that happens without me forgetting something. Usually, it’s some charger. And it used to spiral me into a whole shame spiral: How could I be so careless and uninformed? Why can’t I remember one simple thing? I’d beat myself up for the first hour of every trip. Now? I borrow Coleen’s when she’s not using it, or I buy another one. No wonder there’s a whole drawer of cords and cables in my office—a monument to my absent-mindedness and my newfound ability to just... let it go and solve the problem.
So here’s my confession: Out of these ten formerly infuriating things, I haven’t fully let go. One still gets me. Maybe two, if I’m being honest.
Go ahead. Take a guess. Which petty annoyance am I still clinging to like a lifeboat in a sea of inner peace?
I still can’t let go of being annoyed by people who carry on conversations in public on speakerphone. Why? No, really, why? I know it doesn’t matter. I know they’re not doing it to me. I know that in the grand scheme of human suffering, someone’s loud phone conversation at the grocery store ranks somewhere below “mild inconvenience.” But something about it still triggers that old familiar rage. Maybe it’s the presumption that we all want to be part of their conversation. Perhaps it’s the way it invades shared space with little to no self-awareness. Or maybe I’m just not as enlightened as I think I am.
And Daylight Saving Time? Look, it doesn’t bother me in the emotional sense. I’m not losing sleep over it (well, except for that one night a year when we all do). But it does seem... silly. Pointless. A relic of a time when we thought we could trick the sun. Why are we still doing this?
I’ve repeatedly discussed how meditation has become my number one self-care routine, which I’ve incorporated into my life. You might even feel like it’s my own version of The More You Know... without the celebrity endorsement. I won’t apologize, though.
Recently, Coleen and I were stressing over something in our lives. It was important, believe me—and worthy of stress. And yet I seemed to have my emotions in check. That’s when Coleen said something like, “I need to be more like you with these things.”
First, that’s the first time she ever wished she were more like me. That in itself was a doozy. I may have joked with her that she should try meditation, but I left it at that.
It’s not our job to fix everyone, although admittedly, I feel like it’s been baked into my DNA. I used to find it much harder to hold back my advice. To anyone. I’ll continue to speak positively about meditation, because it works for me. Do I think it will work for others, including Coleen? Of course. But that’s up to them. All I can do is talk about things that have helped me manage stress, stay more focused and energized, and let go... of annoying things people do throughout the day.
Maybe MARK. Set. Go... should be called The More You Know About Mark. It will probably be slightly more irritating—but hopefully just as important to share.
See you next week.
