Living with the Monks

Ding—beep—buzz

Ding—a text alert goes off.

I open my eyes. And with a glance, I check to make sure my wife, Sara, is still sleeping. Check.

It’s still dark out, and the only illumination in our bedroom is my glowing phone.

Carefully I roll over to my right side and reach toward the nightstand to find it.

I need two tickets to the Hawks game tonight—the text says.

I got you—I text back.

As I sink back into bed I pull the covers over my head to eliminate the brightness of my phone. I don’t want to wake Sara. I quickly refresh my email to see what’s come in my inbox during the five hours I was sleeping—too many. I swipe it away. I check the time. It’s 4:53 a.m. I have to get up because I have a workout appointment in seven minutes. SEAL, the man who kicked my ass and lived with my family for thirty-one days, is at my house. And the rule is: If SEAL is at my home, we’re working out.

Two minutes later I check my email again—nothing new.

I swing my legs off the bed and quietly place both of my feet on the rug. My wife’s still sleeping. I slip my phone into the pocket of my shorts and throw on the T-shirt that’s balled up on the floor. I tiptoe out of our bedroom into the long hallway. All four of my children are fast asleep as I pass each of their bedrooms. When I reach the top of the stairs I hear another ding.

I manage to respond to the text as I walk down the steps and simultaneously fire off two emails before getting to the bottom of the stairs. I enter the living room and have one eye on my phone and the other on something SEAL is doing. He’s fussing with the remote trying to turn the television off. He can’t figure out which button to press. He’s mad at the remote and looking at it like it’s a Rubik’s Cube.

I fire off one more email as he spots me.

It’s 4:58 a.m. so I’m early.

“What the fuck is that?” SEAL asks, staring at my hand.

“This? Oh, it’s a phone.”

SEAL takes one more glance at the remote and now decides he’s no longer pissed at the controller; he’s now pissed at me. I can tell he’s getting annoyed—VERY annoyed. He’s staring at me stone faced. He’s not moving—like at all. For a second I think he’s playing some wacked out version of “freeze tag” in his head. He’s as still as a statue.

After about thirty seconds of just staring at me he snaps out of it.

It’s like he was never still.

“Oh, it’s a phone,” he mimics like a three-year-old teasing his big brother. “Oh, it’s a phone.”

He inches closer to me—in my face. I’m not sure why he’s so livid.

What did I do? It is in fact a phone. Right?

“You don’t think I know what a phone is, Jesse? I USE PHONES MOTHERFUCKER. I just used one yesterday. I know a phone when I see one. Oh, it’s a phone,” he says a third time as he bends down to lace up his running sneakers.

“I’m very sorry,” I say, trying to make peace. “I just thought—”

“I KNOW WHAT A PHONE IS, JESSE.”

I try to craft an apology in my head. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I truly owe him one.

“Sorry,” I say again. “I just thought you asked me what’s in my han—”

“Jesse, are you committed?”

I’m confused. I’m not sure where he’s going with this.

“LET ME SAVE YOU SOME TIME MOTHERFUCKER,” he says. “You’re NOT.”

Huh?

“I’m sorry,” comes out of my mouth a third time.

“You and that damn phone,” he says. “You need to clear your mind, Jesse. To be committed.”

He’s so angry that one could mistake his “committed” to mean sending me off to a mental institution. But I’m pretty sure he’s talking about making a commitment—to myself. And maybe he’s right. I do need to unplug. But unplugging is only half of a fix—I need to plug into something else—something bigger than myself; a 180, to get uncomfortable again, a self-imposed time-out and find a growth opportunity. SEAL helped me get physically fit and sharpen my mental toughness. But now I need something that’ll help me quiet my mind and create a new kind of edge.

I look back, and SEAL is already holding the front door open for me.

“Let’s go for a run,” SEAL says.

I’m not sure what happened, but it’s like someone flipped a switch and he’s fine again—not mad. It’s like I never even had a phone. As I follow him out the door I fight an urge to check my phone one last time.

A Few Days Later…

I click on a link that a friend sent me—a picture of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist supermonk, pops up on my computer screen. The photo is, well, I don’t know, likeable. But it’s not so much how he looks, which is a pleasant face with protruding ears and a balding head, but the way he looks. It appears like he’s operating on a higher plane. This is what I’m searching for—I need to figure out how to spend a few weeks in his shadow.

I want to live on his monastery.

My wife always tells me I’m too impulsive, that I don’t think things through before taking action, and it gets me in over my head sometimes. Maybe, but I like to go with my gut. And my gut is telling me that he’s my guy. I start reading the article.

It turns out the holy monk (I’m not exactly sure how to pronounce his name: Tic-Not-Han? Maybe? We’ll call him “Thich” for short) lives on the Plum Village Mindfulness Practice Center in the Dordogne region in the south of France. He’s a master of spirituality and mindfulness—he trains people to become fully present, which sounds fantastic EXCEPT you have to commit to the place for five years, freeze all of your bank accounts, and you’re not allowed to see your family during the first two years of “monkism.”

I may be able to get over the five-year commitment, but not seeing my family is a nonstarter.

Okay, so his isn’t the shadow I’ll be walking in anytime soon.

Although living with Thich might have been a tad aggressive, I’m not ready to give up my spiritual quest. My life is abundant, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed. On top of electronic and social media accessibility 24/7, there are my four kids and their schedules, to-do lists, businesses appointments, charity events, workouts, and running routines. And somehow amid all of that I have to find time for my loving relationship with my wife. I shouldn’t say “have to”—I want to.

But above all, I want to learn something new. I start imagining how much I could accomplish if I blocked out all of the noise in my head, prioritized my time, and learned to be truly present in the moment. I need a Plan B.

I pick up my phone and speed-dial my literary agent, Lisa Leshne.

“Hi, Jesse,” Lisa says after one ring.

I hear wind whipping against her phone. She’s probably walking her dog, Luna, somewhere in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, because just as she says hello to me, I hear her tell someone that Luna’s a rescue dog.

“I want to live on a monastery,” I say.

“Um, okay,” she responds. “But don’t you mean at a monastery?”

“Either way. I just want to go live with monks.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“I did the physical part. I want to explore the spiritual side. I want better focus. Stronger mind-set.”

“Aren’t there podcasts for that?”

“Perhaps, but I need to immerse myself—just like I did with SEAL.”

And that’s when the idea hits her. She tells me to hold and then patches me in with the editor for my book Living with a SEAL, Kate Hartson. When Kate answers, Lisa tells her I’m on the call.

“I hope you’re ready for this one. Jesse wants to go live with a monk,” Lisa says. “Or multiple monks. And I believe you know some monks who might fit the bill!”

There’s nothing but silence on the line.

Kate must think it’s a terrible idea, but my mind is already made up. I want to do this. I’m waiting to hear her reaction, but it doesn’t matter what she says. I don’t need her to sign a permission slip. I’m locked in.

“I actually know of a monastery where you can go,” Kate finally says.

“You do? Would they freeze my assets, and tell me I can’t see my family for two years?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are they in the south of France?”

“Well, no. The monastery is in upstate New York.”

“Upstate New York? That sounds perfect. Can I go for a couple of weeks?”

“I’m pretty sure they’d be happy to have you.”

“Okay, book it. Two weeks or so, for some personal development. Some me time.”

“Don’t you want to know more about them?” Kate asks.

“Are they monks?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s all I really need to know.”

If my wife was with me, and she’s not, she’d shake her head and say something like: See what I mean about not thinking things through?

“Okay,” Kate says in a tone that sounds like she thinks I’m a little chemically imbalanced. “But they’re called the monks of New Skete, just in case you get lost.”

An hour later…

I pick up my phone and dial my wife.

“Sweetie, can we talk for a second?”

“Sure, my love,” she says. “What’s up?”

“I’mgoingtoliveonamonastery.”

I’m hoping it was fast—fast enough so she only half hears me, except my wife doesn’t have “half hearing.” She has whole hearing. She heard me perfectly clear.

“A monastery? As in MONKS?”

“Yes. As in silence, meditation, and monks.”

I can tell from the long pause that Sara is processing the information. That’s what Sara does—she’s a processor. She thinks things through before making a decision. I, on the other hand, am a reactor. I hear the word “challenge” and immediately react with, “I’m in!”

And in this case, Sara taking her time is justified. Some guys need an excuse to go to a bachelor party in South Beach or a hall pass for a weekend in Vegas. But I’m trying to go to a monastery, which is a lot to process. So before she responds, I follow it up with a kicker to help my cause.

“And it’s going to make our marriage even stronger, sweetie.”

“Stronger?” Sara asks. Then she repeats the word again, with more curiosity: “STRONGER? Explain that one to me.”

“Well, I think it’ll help me appreciate our time together. Be more present. Stuff like that.”

“Jesse, this sounds like an excuse to go run a marathon somewhere with your friends.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m planning on going next month.”

“Then, love, have you lost your marbles? Because there are plenty of other solutions to make a marriage stronger, like maybe we should just go for more walks together.”

She has a point. But this isn’t really about making our marriage stronger.

I need a different angle—quick.

A few years ago I realized I was watching an awful lot of football. College games on Saturday and the NFL on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday were on my viewing schedule. It was excessive. And while I did love watching the games, I calculated that if I kept on that pace and lived to be eighty-two years old, I’d spend (waste) another 36,000 hours of my life watching football. Think about that—watching other people play a sport. It was a wake-up call. So I immediately unplugged the TV and went cold turkey. And right after I made the decision I told Sara that I had just freed up 36,000 hours of my life to use as I saw fit. That’s 1,500 days… four years. So then Sara asked me what I was going to do with all of that newfound free time.

“Some of those hours are for you,” I said with a flirtatious smile. “Some are for personal adventures.”

And right now feels like a good time to pull out the adventure card! It’s worth a shot.

“I’m using some of the 36,000 hours I freed up, sweetie.”

“Really, darling?”

Okay now, don’t let Sara’s blonde, bubbly charm fool you. She built Spanx, one of the most popular women’s undergarment companies in the world, and she did it entirely on her own with $5,000 of savings and no investors. So she can smell when there’s something fishy going on.

“So it’s going to make our marriage better, huh?”

“MUCH.”

“You know, sweetie? You’re so full of shit, but you’re darn cute. If you want to go live at a monastery, then you should go and enjoy yourself, Mr. Monk.”

Okay then—it’s set. One of my favorite business rules is: DON’T OVERSELL—when you get the order, shut up and leave.

So I respond with, “I love you, dear,” and immediately hang up.

The next couple of weeks are business as usual. Sara is supportive but leery of my plan or lack of planning. She wishes I’d do more research and preparing. But when I’m ready to do something, I don’t let anything slow me down. Ready, fire, aim.

Soon I’m counting days instead of weeks and then hours instead of days. It’s almost go time. The night before I’m set to leave for the monastery, I craft a social media blast. It’s partly a heads-up to tell people I’ll be off the grid for a while and also a request for suggestions for a book or two I should bring. Moments after I hit send, my phone starts to sound like a Las Vegas casino—dings, beeps, and buzzes. It doesn’t stop.

Along with commenting on favorite books—How to Be a No-Limit Person, Mindful Parenting, Man’s Search for Meaning—I get suggestions for blogs on meditation, spiritual guides to follow on Twitter, podcast recommendations, and must-watch documentaries about happiness, mindfulness, and soul-searching.

Everyone has a favorite. The comments keep coming in: ding—beep—buzz.

The responses are passionate and from people who have found a helpful nugget to make their daily lives a little bit better. They’re eager to share—of my 1,000 career Instagram posts it’s the most commented one of all time. As I look at my phone, I realize I’ve hit a nerve. The search for living a more meaningful life is a viral topic. And yet, it seems, at least the way my life unfolds on a daily basis, that we don’t have time for anything that isn’t announced with a ping.

And here’s the thing: Every day, information, news, and entertainment bombard us. It comes at us from all angles, like we’re under attack. We are living in complete information overload. Meanwhile, we’re losing, or have lost, our most significant asset—the ability to think for ourselves. At every turn, we’re told what to do, where to go, and what to like. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook make decisions for us. Alexa, Siri, and Google Home tell us how, when, and where for everything else.

But we weren’t wired this way; it’s more of a learned trait. All of those pings over time have trained us to read and respond immediately. As soon as an email hits our inbox we feel the need to respond right back. It’s gotten to a point that it controls our time. And yet, I’ve always been a guy who relies heavily on his gut. Or at least I used to be. When your combined score on the SATs is 900, you either have a good gut or you don’t go very far in life. And my instincts have served me well, but as my wife always tells me, the only way to be in tune with your gut is to be alone—thinking. I’ve found that if you lose your “gut feel” you lose one of your greatest secret weapons. In fact, in virtually all areas of life—instinct is critical. When it’s firing on all cylinders, the force is always with you. And for me, it’s always guided my decisions on friends, work, and life adventures.

As I scroll through the thousands of responses to my post, I start to get energized.

I know I’m on the right path. The path to the monastery!