One evening last summer, I found myself in a room at a Comfort Inn outside Seattle that smelled like it hadn’t been repainted since someone had smoked a thousand cigarettes in it 20 years ago, writing down all of the worst things that had ever happened to me. This was not a pleasant endeavour, nor was it one I had expected to have to undertake, although perhaps I should have done.

I ended up in this stale hotel room on the recommendation of a friend. She works in tech in Los Angeles and, when I was there on a reporting trip, I asked her what people in her milieu were excited about. She told me about a program she was planning to sign up for called 40 Years of Zen.

Financial Times