While walking mindfully in the woods at a retreat many years ago, Thich Nhat Hanh encountered a rather precocious young girl. Precocious enough to ask the world-renown monk, author, poet, and peace activist what he planned to be in his next life.

Hanh chuckled and then confessed. Because he had been so mindful in the present moment, he admitted, he hadn’t decided yet.

He imagined, however, he could become a cloud, a bird, a butterfly, or even a little yellow flower like the one in front of them. So if sometime in the future the girl failed to be fully mindful, he warned, she might not recognize him and step on him.

The possibility made the girl gasp and Hanh chuckle again.

I remembered this story a few days ago after finally reading an article I clipped from a newspaper last June, so I dusted off the boom box and listened to The Art of Mindful Living (Sounds True, 2000) once again. An act which in and of itself is not newsworthy.

But that reading Michelle Chapman’s article, “Tobacco-like warning label for social media sought,” has me reassessing Hanh’s steadfast belief to live mindfully in the present moment is. This belief and the way in which Hanh lived his life have deeply influenced mine.

But social media now does as well — and there’s something to it that makes me wary. Chapman’s article about an opinion piece written by Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy for The New York Times has allowed me to understand why.

It’s allowed me to see that even though I limit my exposure to it, social media is still powerful enough to mess with my mind.

Prior to reading Chapman’s article, I was well aware that social media is a “contributing factor” in the mental health crisis now among young people and that Surgeon General Murthy feels a warning label on its platforms is warranted. But I hadn’t really considered, as Murthy writes, that features of it like infinite scroll not only contribute to “excessive use,“ but also “prey on developing brains.”

Because I hadn’t fully recognized how infinite scroll preys on mine.

While I primarily listen to videos and podcasts on YouTube to kickstart the process that leads to columns, I’ll also skim the infinite scroll options looking for ways to enhance my own health. Invariably, I find myself drawn to the ones that suggest a dietary habit of mine is ineffective, foolish, or potentially harmful.

So I’ll watch and — despite my best attempt to remain in the present moment and mindful — feel oddly anxious by the end.

According to more than one podcaster, for instance, it’s best not eat anything within three hours of bedtime. Doing so creates a release of insulin that not only leads to the production of body fat, but it also adversely affects other hormone production.

So much so that late-in-the-day eating can lead to type 2 diabetes.

Yet for more than 40 years, I’ve been consuming the majority of my calories from supper on. For the past 30 or so, I’ve actually been getting up once or twice in the night to eat snacks.

You’d think both of these facts along with the podcasters’ take on the matter would only improve my mood. Because such a discrepancy suggests something I’ve written since the inception of this column is indeed true.

That we are all biologically individual; therefore, personal experience supersedes scientific study.

Yet my mood doesn’t improve. Instead, I experience that oddly anxious feeling you probably get when you sense something’s amiss but you don’t what.

Only this time I do — which only increases my anxiety.

And you’d never believe what food is bad for you — unless, that is, you’ve watched the videos I have. Spinach.

According to more than one podcaster, consumption of spinach should be minimal — if it’s consumed at all — since it contains a high concentration of oxalates. That’s a bitter-tasting substance found in certain plants so animals don’t eat them.

But some of the highest-functioning animals have learned to enjoy the bitter taste — and some have learned oxalates sometimes create inflammation.

I’ve been adding so much spinach to my daily salads that I buy five 8-ounce bags every week and have done so for years. Years before I broke both my femurs in separate cycling mishaps.

So why do I keep thinking that if I’d only give up spinach and the other high-oxalate foods I consume — tea, potatoes, soy and bran cereal — that the all-too-frequent ache in my glutes and hips I’ve only experienced since metal rods have been screwed to my femurs would dissipate?

Because social media tells me so.

Now I’m not suggesting you abstain from all social media, but I do want you to be fully aware of this fact. Social media’s a shades-of-gray genie who’s been left out the bottle, hellbent on never going back, and just dying to do his job.

So be very careful what you wish for.