Just meditate

I've been meditating over a decade ago now. I started meditating because of anxiety. I used to meditate 20 minutes a day for stress-relief purposes.

Then let's just say I got into the spiritual side that comes with meditation. I maintained a daily meditation practice and even meditated for hours daily for a period of time. It started to feel like a chore though. It was taking up a lot of my time. I didn't really want to meditate. I wanted the result that I thought meditating could bring: peace, joy, enlightenment even.

Then after a while, I just lost interest in meditating so much. I didn't prioritize it as much. Lately, I haven't meditated in weeks.

But the other day, I felt like I wanted to meditate. I remembered how nice it felt and I wanted to experience that again. So I sat down and meditated for 20 minutes. And indeed, it felt nice, and I enjoyed the experience.

Now, I ponder this question more: do you truly want to do the thing? Or do you want the result that may or may not result from doing the thing? Like most "high-achieving" individuals, I was over-indexed on the latter. Reconnecting with the former has helped.