Sitting still is how many of us get what we most crave and need in our accelerated lives, a break.
Stillness is an old idea. This is what wise beings have been telling us through the centuries. More than 2000 years ago, the Stoics were reminding us that it’s not our experience that makes our lives, it’s what we do with it.
Imagine a bad weather ruining all your plans. One man can get frustrated. Another man almost feels liberated, and decides this is a great chance to work on his side project. It’s exactly the same event, but radically different responses.
There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
So much of our lives takes place inside our heads. In memory, imagination, interpretation and speculation. If you really want a change in your life, you must first begin by changing your mind.
One of our greatest luxuries is the empty space. In a lot of pieces of music, it’s the pause or the rest that gives its beauty and shape. In many great books, there’s a lot of empty spaces and empty pages, so that the readers can complete the author’s thoughts and sentences. In many movies, the pause and the stillness is what makes a movie a masterpiece. My favorite example is Spirited Away.
In the physical domain, if you get to a place of real stillness, you’ll realize that it’s only by going there that you’ll have anything fresh, creative or joyful to share with the world. Otherwise, you’re just foisting in everyone your exhaustion and your distractedness which is no blessing at all.
In an age of distraction, nothing can be more luxurious as paying attention. In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating as going slow. In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.
Finding moments of stillness can be your secret weapon for seizing opportunities. Embrace the stillness as it holds the key to unlocking your advantage. When you can make time stand still, you create space for innovation and strategic thinking. Harness these moments of stillness, to pivot, adapt and excel.
The power of stillness lies not in avoiding the chaos of the world, but in learning to find peace within it. When the water in a lake is still, it reflects the beauty of the sky and the trees around it. But when the water is disturbed by the wind, its reflections become distorted and unclear. Similarly, when our minds are disturbed by the chaos around us, our perception of reality becomes distorted. But if we can learn to still our minds, we can see the beauty and clarity of the world around us.
Penetrating the core of existence and shaping reality at your will does not happen by thriving, but by staying still. It is not something that you can do, because doing is movement. It is something that you embody, because the core of existence lies within you, not somewhere outside of you.
All that you call as life, all that you know as life, all the actions, the colors and the shapes that you see, is just the surface of existence. But once you have a taste of something deeper, once you have a taste of stillness, once you get in touch with the source of existence, you can see its surface as a game. If you do not know how to be still, you can only be ill.
We may have different names for our illness, but they all originate from the lack of stillness.
No moment in the existence is perpetual. Certain things may be on the move for a long time, but never perpetual. All that moves is bound to exhaust itself. What moves will brought to stop. But that which is still, is for always.
If you found any value in that post, you can join my newsletter for more by clicking the link below:
