>“ While the benefits differ slightly, the magnitude of benefit from other SIDCHAs -- like exercising, drawing a picture, writing a blog post, writing three business ideas, cooking a meal from scratch, etc every day -- can be just as great.“
I’m not sure how you can equate meditations benefits to drawing pictures, or writing three business ideas. They are fundamentally different activities that produce vastly different outcomes, some being much more valuable.
In the case of meditation it’s the ability to pause the incessant thinking mind, glean insights into the nature of consciousness and be able to enter the present moment more frequently. Those things alone are worth far more than being able to draw pretty pictures or bench your body weight.
Meditation may have specific benefits. But having a fit body and knowing how to draw, write or cook is also nice.
But the important common part is that you take steps to better your life. Even activities that have no proven benefits by themselves such as magic rituals, "alternative medicine", prayer, etc... can work.
The idea is that such activities can create a positive chain of events: you going to the gym, your training calls for better nutrition so you eat better, you also sleep better and the workout schedule can impose a healthy work/life balance. You may want to start meditation to improve your focus.
With meditation you realize your body doesn't feel well so you eat better, sleep better, that pause helps you maintain a good work/life balance. You may even consider exercising.
Notice the recurring themes. Once you are in a self improvement mindset things start to support themselves.
I wrote a post about just this topic: http://joshuaspodek.com/choice-sidcha-isnt-important. It has a bunch of pictures or I'd copy it here, but the upshot is that more value comes from doing something self-imposed healthy and active every day than from the specific activity.
In my experience, a lot of mental mastery comes from discipline, focus, dedication, and such from consistently overcoming challenges.
From how you characterize creating art as drawing "nice pictures", I suspect you might underestimate the value of artistic self-expression, fitness, and other things, but I might be misinterpreting.
I’m not sure how you can equate meditations benefits to drawing pictures, or writing three business ideas. They are fundamentally different activities that produce vastly different outcomes, some being much more valuable.
In the case of meditation it’s the ability to pause the incessant thinking mind, glean insights into the nature of consciousness and be able to enter the present moment more frequently. Those things alone are worth far more than being able to draw pretty pictures or bench your body weight.