Harris starts the book with a short description of a panic attack he had while on camera reading the news on Good Morning America in 2004. The attack left him speechless and gasping while the cameras are running. Later on, we find out that this resulted from extensive drug use, basically speed and cocaine, which increased the baseline level of adrenaline in his brain, thereby upping the odds of a panic attack. But the drug use came after a long period in which he sought out and reported from war zones, and came to have a kind of addiction to the excitement and adventure of war. The drugs were an attempt to continue the excitement of war while at home. Along with war came exposure to the horrors of bloated corpses and suicide bombing, and the political infighting at work to get air time. Air time was the only way for an ambitious reporter to advance to the coveted anchor chair.
At one point, Harris realizes that his life is a mess. His apartment is a shambles, he has no personal life, and he ends up getting a mysterious illness that leaves him tired all the time, achy, and not wanting to get out of bed. He goes for tests but the doctors find nothing, so in the absence of any physical cause, depression is suspected. He visits a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist tells him that he has to stop doing drugs, and clean up his life: exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthy food, and don't drink so much alcohol. Harris goes cold turkey on the drugs and then slowly begins to put into practice what the doctor perscribed, continuing his psychotherapy.
About the same time (2004), Peter Jennings, head news anchor at ABC News gives him an assignment to cover the evangelical Christian community for the 2004 election. At first Harris resists, but then he gives in. He gets to know Ted Haggard, a personable evangelical minister, and comes to like him and respect the evangelical community, even as he disagrees with their political and social views. Later on Haggard is exposed as a hypocrite when he is discovered cheating on his wife with a man, and taking cocaine to boot. One of his co-workers recommends a book by Eckhart Tolle, the self-proclaimed enlightened master, which Harris reads multiple times. He eventually arranges an interview with Tolle and is disappointed because Tolle has no advice how Harris can develop the same level of equanimity. He also interviews Deepak Chopra and a few other New Age types, finds them to be mostly self-promoting blowhards.
What Harris is looking for is some way to top the voice in his head, his "inner asshole" (in his words). The voice is constantly taunting him with how he's in danger of failing, like that because he's losing his hair he'll end up losing his job and living in a flophouse somewhere. His wife Bianca gives him a couple books from Mark Epstein, the Buddhist psychotherapist, and he arranges a meeting with Epstein. Epstein suggests he try meditation, which he does, and, like most beginners, is astounded to see what his mind is doing. Harris is persistent and he keeps his meditation practice up, even when on the road and even if it's only 5 minutes a day. He eventually does a 10 day vipassana/metta retreat at Spirit Rock where he has a deep opening after a metta session. The opening lasts several days. After the retreat, Harris realizes that he's willing to settle for 10% happier, even though meditation may make him 100%.
Back at work, Harris finds that he's more interested in co-operating with the other young guys who are competing for air time, and more able to help. His boss tells him that he won't ever be a major news anchor so he releases his ambition. But things go too far and he starts losing air time to other reporters, so he has to pull back and start finding a way to balance ambition and equanimity. Epstein provides the answer: nonattachment. By putting maximum effort into something without being attached to the results, you can accept that, ultimately, the results are out of your control.
Harris' book is great for people who think meditation is, in his words, "bullshit" because that's how he felt himself. In an appendix he goes through a faq of the objections people with this attitude might react on first exposure to mindfulness meditation. Harris stumbled upon meditation and really had no other alternative, since his life was a miserable mess. He wasn't looking for a technique to discover the true nature of reality, or anything like that, just a way to reduce his suffering, even just 10%. He found it, and his story is an eloquent guide for others who may be in the same circumstances.
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