The Coping Economy

Does mindfulness leave the worker any better off? There's little to object to about the practice of mindfulness itself, which Thomas Joiner defines in his new book Mindlessness as an "awareness of the richness, subtlety, and variety of the presentmoment." But in the workplace, meditation and calmness initiatives can perpetuate intolerable conditions by creating a culture of acceptance. Encouraged to see their general wellbeing as separate from their economic wellbeing, mindful employees concentrate their efforts on cultivating the first, not the second. This can keep them from noticing how intimately the two are in fact linked, how abundantly job anxiety spills into the rest of life. If happiness lies within, then the lack of happiness is a purely personal matter, and work can't be the problem.