Getting Discomfortable with Wisdom 2.0

Last month I went to a meditation and technology conference called Wisdom 2.0 in San Fransisco. Though I had heard mixed reviews about this conference, I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming and friendly everyone was. I quickly felt a sense of belonging and the atmosphere and size of the event were such that I felt comfortable talking to pretty much anyone. It seemed like a really caring, thoughtful, and conscientious community.

And that is why I was so surprised when I went to the bathroom after a long day of sessions to find that someone had left the toilet seat soaking wet. Since all the other stalls were taken, I was left feeling resentment and disillusionment as I crouched down and grabbed a wad of toilet paper to clean the seat myself. While this is admittedly no big deal in the grand scheme of things, of all the events and all the crowds, it just didn’t seem like the kind of careless and disrespectful thing someone at Wisdom 2.0 would do. I felt kind of like I’d been betrayed! Like the spell had been broken and I saw this “enlightened” crowd for the hypocrites they really were. I found myself sinking into misanthropic thoughts about how terrible people were everywhere…

But then I stopped myself. I was reminded of something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately — that everything has a reason. I don’t mean that everything happens for a reason, just that there’s a reason for everything that happens. Things are rarely as senseless, incompetent, or crazy as they seem. There’s almost always a valid explanation, a story, and once I understand that story, it inevitably changes the way I react to any given negative event. It doesn’t even matter if I ever get to hear the full story or find out what that valid explanation is, just knowing that there must be one is enough to help me curb my judgment, anger, and exasperation, allowing me to move on.

And so with this new attitude, I stopped stewing, cleaned the seat, and went about my business. And as I stood up afterward, I quickly discovered that there really was an explanation! My theory was validated almost right away and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing right there in the public bathroom.

This experience dovetailed nicely with a powerful meditation practice I did with a stranger later in the conference led by Jack Kornfield, reminding me once again that everyone has their reasons for who they are and what they do. You can actually watch that entire meditation session below and try it yourself with a partner (if you look closely, you can see the back of my head just after the 10-minute mark): 

The other sessions I mention in this episode are online as well, Ev Williams from Twitter, Joan Halifax & Micheal Pollan, the Parkland Shooting survivors, Jay Shetty, Chelsea Handler, and more.