In my late twenties, I was obsessed with hot yoga. These were intense Vinyasa flows with a lot of ab work—not Bikram, not especially mindful. They were exercise classes in yogi clothing. (I’m interested in reading the new book Fascist Yoga, because I’m researching wellness culture for a future essay.) Whatever they were, they reshaped my brain and, for a time, my body. I could at one point press up into a handstand and touch my toes to my head. It was a form of exercise that played to my natural abilities: strength, balance, and an ability to withstand punishment.

The reason I began to go to the yoga studio was that I’d spent three weekends visiting two people (my brother, my grandpa) in the hospital while my parents were also going through a prolonged divorce and my nerves were fried. So fried that I was praying the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, and yoga was apparently his answer (he’s mentioned in The Autobiography of a Yogi, so it’s quite plausible I interpreted him correctly). 

Like a lot of people, praying wasn’t a thing I did until I really needed to do it, and the response was immediate, probably because of the desperation. I had been struggling with feeling stuck as a copy editor, too socially anxious and suburban to ever write for the magazine at which I worked, and yoga gave me an outlet and also led me to vegan baking. (You’ll read more about this in my next book, On Eating, out April 14, 2026—yes, I will be reminding you regularly.)

The exercise and meditation made me mindful in that I learned how to control my thoughts, and perhaps more important, to know when I obviously wasn’t in control of them. It taught me that everything is temporary, suffering and joy alike. When a fellow practitioner complimented me on my abs—my brief dalliance with a six-pack—I nodded back at her blankly and she scoffed as she walked away from me. My blank nod was an expression of the knowledge even in that moment that the abs were temporary. I didn’t want to get attached: to the abs or the compliments.

Anyway, mindfulness: It’s a practice. I have really well-honed approaches that I don’t have to think about. I don’t look at Amazon or GoodReads reviews of my book. I don’t give credence to accolades I don’t value. I focus on my work and on enjoying every day of my life—or at least making every day feel useful, which I need in order to be happy. (If rest makes you happy, I’m glad for you. It’s not for everyone.) My mind has been easy to control when it comes to work itself.

There are practices I fail at, by being resentful of the individualization of journalism work and anxiously worrying about whether I can appeal to thousands on a weekly basis over the course of years (so far, so good…). I judge people for carelessness while also of course being careless myself. I hate tourists and car-dependent infrastructure: both of these make me so agitated I could and do scream. I’m vain and wish I were photogenic, because I also think this would make it easier to get people to pay me. Algorithms! Capitalism! People’s obsession with meat! All of it makes me lose control of my thoughts.

In light of this long list of things that agitate me and make me a version of myself that I don’t want to be, I have restarted with affirmations of who I do want to be and what I want in my life—corny, sure, but a lot of corny shit makes people better to be around. And by affirming who I want to be, I think I can become it. I write my own in my notebook, on the page opposite the week’s to-do list. I have also made a list of affirmative aphorisms that are useful for anyone pursuing creative or cultural work.