52 - The Quiet

The Quiet

Our heads were too noisy and the world was too loud. We walked through our days with tense muscles, electrified nerves, and aching brains. We needed to relax. We craved peace and quiet but did not know where to find it. One day we noticed a man sitting in a field, his legs crossed and eyes closed with a gentle smile. "Yes," we said. "This is how we should live." And so we canceled our appointments, switched off our devices, and joined him. We sat in the grass and practiced being perfectly still, and in this way we managed to stop the world - for a few minutes, anyway. The world quickly slipped back into our heads, reminding us of the things we wanted to do, the people we wanted to hug, and the ideas we wanted to share. But we had committed to being quiet and sitting perfectly still, so we did not move for days, even though our thoughts were noisier than ever. When we could stand it no longer, some of us opened our eyes and saw that the man with the gentle smile was across the street, talking on his telephone and eating a sandwich.

Peace and quiet comes only if we remain still when it is time to keep still and if we move when it is time to take action. Eliminate anxiety about the future by focusing on the present.