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Yes. It was possible to stand. Nothing happened. I listened. There was no sound: no boats on the river, no trucks on the road, not even cicadas. What if I didn’t listen to the news? I didn’t. Nothing happened. I realized I had been afraid of the silence.
We are afraid of being the bad guy who says, “Nope, not interested.” We’d rather make ourselves miserable than make ourselves a priority, than be our best selves.
Than be still . . . and in charge of our own information diet.
“but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking.
Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water. Don’t overanalyze. Do the work. Don’t think. Hit.
“achieve a void . . . noiseless, colorless, heatless void”—to get to that state of emptiness, whether it was on the mound or in the batter’s box or at practice.
Zhuang Zhou, the Chinese philosopher, said, “Tao is in the emptiness. Emptiness is the fast of the mind.”
You don’t just have to control what gets in, you also have to control what goes on in there.
Keep it clean and clear.
Think about what the rest of the chessboard looks like.
Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain.
“I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you’ll be a great source of comfort and support.”
Anne didn’t write every day, but she always wrote when she was upset or dealing with a problem.
Anne used her journal to reflect.
Anyone who reads him today can feel him reaching for stillness in these nightly writings.
To silence the barking dogs in your head.
They are for the writer. To slow the mind down. To wage peace with oneself.
Journaling is a way to ask tough questions: Where am I standing in my own way? What’s the smallest step I can take toward a big thing today? Why am I so worked up about this? What blessings can I count right now? Why do I care so much about impressing people? What is the harder choice I’m avoiding? Do I rule my fears, or do they rule me? How will today’s difficulties reveal my character?*
journaling helps improve well-being after traumatic and stressful events.
Instead of carrying that baggage around in our heads or hearts, we put it down on paper. Instead of letting racing thoughts run unchecked or leaving half-baked assumptions unquestioned, we force ourselves to write and examine them.
“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise,”
fullness in emptiness.
“Thought will not work except in silence,” Thomas Carlyle said. If we want to think better, we need to seize these moments of quiet.
Helsinki,
Kamppi Chapel.
Church of Silence.
You walk in and there is just silence.
But a couple hours without chatter, without other people in their ear, where they could simply think (or not think), they could recharge and find peace.
Each of us needs to cultivate those moments in our lives. Where we limit our inputs and turn down the volume so that we can access a deeper awareness of what’s going on around us.
wisdom was gained through experience and study.
Tolstoy expressed his exasperation at people who didn’t read deeply and regularly. “I cannot understand,” he said, “how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.”
Find people you admire and ask how they got where they are.
The wise are still because they have seen it all. They know what to expect because they’ve been through so much. They’ve made mistakes and learned from them. And so must you.
Treat your brain like the muscle that it is.
Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself.
He learned then that panic solved nothing, and that salvation rarely came from rash action.
And even then, when they would hit the target, Kenzo wouldn’t shower the archer with praise. On the contrary, after a bull’s-eye, Kenzo would urge them to “go on practicing as if nothing happened.” He’d say the same after a bad shot. When the students asked for extra instruction, he’d reply, “Don’t ask, practice!”
If we aim too intensely for the target—as Kenzo warned his students—we will neglect the process and the art required to hit it.
The more at peace we are, the more productive we can be.
We sit with presence. We sit with our journals. We empty our minds.
“shrug it all off and wipe it clean—every annoyance and distraction—and reach utter stillness.” To build a kind of mental vault or stronghold that no distraction or false impression can breach. For brief moments, we are able to get there. And when we’re there, we find ourselves capable of things we didn’t even know were possible: Superior performance. Awesome clarity. Profound happiness.
We want consistent focus
and wisdom that can be called upon in even the most trying situations.
Most of us would be seized with fear if our bodies went numb, and would do everything possible to avoid it, yet we take no interest at all in the numbing of our souls.
because he did it with such poise that no one watching even knew the extent of his injuries.
what’s happening on the surface of the water doesn’t matter—it’s what’s going on below that will kill you.
“For what is a man profited,” Jesus asked his disciples, “if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Because it is our soul that is the key to our happiness (or our unhappiness), contentment (or discontent), moderation (or gluttony), and stillness (or perturbation).
Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy.
Honest. Patient. Caring. Kind. Brave. Calm. Firm. Generous. Forgiving. Righteous.
