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Stillness Is the Key

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Stillness Is the Key

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The struggle is great, the task divine—to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility. —EPICTETUS

Ah, isn’t that what we all crave? What discipline! What focus! To be able to tune out our surroundings, to access one’s full capabilities at any time, in any place, despite every difficulty? How wonderful that would be! What we’d be able to accomplish! How much happier we would be!

The Buddhist word for it was upekkha. The Muslims spoke of aslama. The Hebrews, hishtavut. The second book of the Bhagavad Gita, the epic poem of the warrior Arjuna, speaks of samatvam, an “evenness of mind—a peace that is ever the same.” The Greeks, euthymia and hesychia. The Epicureans, ataraxia. The Christians, aequanimitas. In English: stillness. To be steady while the world spins around you. To act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude—exterior and interior—on command.

Buddhism. Stoicism. Epicureanism. Christianity. Hinduism. It’s all but impossible to find a philosophical school or religion that does not venerate this inner peace—this stillness—as the highest good and as the key to elite performance and a happy life. And when basically all the wisdom of the ancient world agrees on something, only a fool would decline to listen.

“All of humanity’s problems,” Blaise Pascal said in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so that we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, makes space for gratitude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks the insights of genius, and allows us regular folks to understand them.

Martin Luther King Jr. observed that there was a violent civil war raging within each and every person—between our good and bad impulses, between our ambitions and our principles, between what we can be and how hard it is to actually get there.

In those battles, in that war, stillness is the river and the railroad junction through which so much depends. It is the key … To thinking clearly. To seeing the whole chessboard. To making tough decisions. To managing our emotions. To identifying the right goals. To handling high-pressure situations. To maintaining relationships. To building good habits. To being productive. To physical excellence. To feeling fulfilled. To capturing moments of laughter and joy.

To achieve stillness, we’ll need to focus on three domains, the timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the flesh.

The mind is restless, Krishna, impetuous, self-willed, hard to train: to master the mind seems as difficult as to master the mighty winds. —THE BHAGAVAD GITA

This is, in fact, the first obligation of a leader and a decision maker. Our job is not to “go with our gut” or fixate on the first impression we form about an issue. No, we need to be strong enough to resist thinking that is too neat, too plausible, and therefore almost always wrong. Because if the leader can’t take the time to develop a clear sense of the bigger picture, who will? If the leader isn’t thinking through all the way to the end, who is?

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face. Put yourself in his shoes—so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil—nothing is so self-blinding.

Careful as someone crossing an iced-over stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapable as a block of wood. Receptive as a valley. Clear as a glass of water.

Be fully present. Empty our mind of preconceptions. Take our time. Sit quietly and reflect. Reject distraction. Weigh advice against the counsel of our convictions. Deliberate without being paralyzed.

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,—act in the living present! Heart within, and God o’erhead! —HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Don’t reject a difficult or boring moment because it is not exactly what you want. Don’t waste a beautiful moment because you are insecure or shy. Make what you can of what you have been given. Live what can be lived. That’s what excellence is. That’s what presence makes possible.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. —HERBERT SIMON

There is way too much coming at us. In order to think clearly, it is essential that each of us figures out how to filter out the inconsequential from the essential. It’s not enough to be inclined toward deep thought and sober analysis; a leader must create time and space for it.

“If you wish to improve,” Epictetus once said, “be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.”

Indeed, the first thing great chiefs of staff do—whether it’s for a general or a president or the CEO of a local bank—is limit the amount of people who have access to the boss. They become gatekeepers: no more drop-ins, tidbits, and stray reports. So the boss can see the big picture. So the boss has time and room to think.

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius says, “Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” Knowing what not to think about. What to ignore and not to do. It’s your first and most important job.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Before we can make deep changes in our lives, we have to look into our diet, our way of consuming. We have to live in such a way that we stop consuming the things that poison us and intoxicate us. Then we will have the strength to allow the best in us to arise, and we will no longer be victims of anger, of frustration.

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.

How different would the world look if people spent as much time listening to their conscience as they did to chattering broadcasts? If they could respond to the calls of their convictions as quickly as we answer the dings and rings of technology in our pockets?

To become empty is to become one with the divine—this is the Way. —AWA KENZO

Because the mind is an important and sacred place. Keep it clean and clear.

With my sighted eye I see what’s before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what’s hidden. —ALICE WALKER

We’re taking as certainties impressions we have yet to test. We’re not stopping to put on our glasses and really look.

Your job, after you have emptied your mind, is to slow down and think. To really think, on a regular basis… . Think about what’s important to you… . Think about what’s actually going on… . Think about what might be hidden from view… . Think about what the rest of the chessboard looks like… . Think about what the meaning of life really is.

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. —JACK LONDON

“I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.”

This is what the best journals look like. They aren’t for the reader. They are for the writer. To slow the mind down. To wage peace with oneself.

All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence… . Silence is the general consecration of the universe. —HERMAN MELVILLE

“Thought will not work except in silence,” Thomas Carlyle said. If we want to think better, we need to seize these moments of quiet. If we want more revelations—more insights or breakthroughs or new, big ideas—we have to create more room for them. We have to step away from the comfort of noisy distractions and stimulations. We have to start listening.

Imperturbable wisdom is worth everything. —DEMOCRITUS

People who don’t read have no advantage over those who cannot read.

Remember, Socrates looked honestly at what he didn’t know. That’s hard. It’s painful to have our illusions punctured. It’s humbling to learn that we are not as smart as we thought we were.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. —COLIN POWELL

Confident people know what matters. They know when to ignore other people’s opinions. They don’t boast or lie to get ahead (and then struggle to deliver). Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself. A confident person doesn’t fear disagreement and doesn’t see change—swapping an incorrect opinion for a correct one—as an admission of inferiority. Ego, on the other hand, is unsettled by doubts, afflicted by hubris, exposed by its own boasting and posturing. And yet it will not probe itself—or allow itself to be probed—because it knows what might be found.

Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself. A confident person doesn’t fear disagreement and doesn’t see change—swapping an incorrect opinion for a correct one—as an admission of inferiority.

This is key. Both egotistical and insecure people make their flaws central to their identity—either by covering them up or by brooding over them or externalizing them. For them stillness is impossible, because stillness can only be rooted in strength. That’s what we have to focus on. Don’t feed insecurity. Don’t feed delusions of grandeur. Both are obstacles to stillness. Be confident. You’ve earned it.

Work done for a reward is much lower than work done in the Yoga of wisdom. Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for the reward; but never cease to do thy work. —THE BHAGAVAD GITA

Stillness, then, is actually a way to superior performance. Looseness will give you more control than gripping tightly—to a method or a specific outcome.

Mastering our mental domain—as paradoxical as it might seem—requires us to step back from the rigidity of the word “mastery.” We’ll get the stillness we need if we focus on the individual steps, if we embrace the process, and give up chasing. We’ll think better if we aren’t thinking so hard.

If the mind is disciplined, the heart turns quickly from fear to love. —JOHN CAGE

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. —EPICTETUS

Our soul is where we secure our happiness and unhappiness, contentment or emptiness—and ultimately, determine the extent of our greatness. We must maintain a good one.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

If the concept of “virtue” seems a bit stuffy to you, consider the evidence that a virtuous life is worthwhile for its own sake. No one has less serenity than the person who does not know what is right or wrong. No one is more exhausted than the person who, because they lack a moral code, must belabor every decision and consider every temptation. No one feels worse about themselves than the cheater or the liar, even if—often especially if—they are showered with rewards for their cheating and lying. Life is meaningless to the person who decides their choices have no meaning.

The gift of free will is that in this life we can choose to be good or we can choose to be bad. We can choose what standards to hold ourselves to and what we will regard as important, honorable, and admirable. The choices we make in that regard determine whether we will experience peace or not.

It is impossible to live the pleasant life without also living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely it is impossible to live sensibly, nobly, and justly without living pleasantly. A person who does not have a pleasant life is not living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely the person who does not have these virtues cannot live pleasantly.

What is virtue? Seneca would ask. His answer: “True and steadfast judgment.” And from virtue comes good decisions and happiness and peace. It emanates from the soul and directs the mind and the body.

Each of us must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask: What’s important to me? What would I rather die for than betray? How am I going to live and why?

Heraclitus said that character was fate. He’s right. We develop good character, strong epithets for ourselves, so when it counts, we will not flinch. So that when everyone else is scared and tempted, we will be virtuous. We will be still.

The child is in me still … and sometimes not so still. —FRED ROGERS

Many of us carry wounds from our childhood. Maybe someone didn’t treat us right. Or we experienced something terrible. Or our parents were just a little too busy or a little too critical or a little too stuck dealing with their own issues to be what we needed. These raw spots shape decisions we make and actions we take—even if we’re not always conscious of that fact.

Sigmund Freud himself wrote about how common it is for deficiencies, big and small, at a young age to birth toxic, turbulent attitudes in adulthood. Because we weren’t born rich enough, pretty enough, naturally gifted enough, because we weren’t appreciated like other children in the classroom, or because we had to wear glasses or got sick a lot or couldn’t afford nice clothes, we carry a chip on our shoulder. Some of us are like Richard III, believing that a deformity entitles us to be selfish or mean or insatiably ambitious. As Freud explained, “We all demand reparation for our early wounds to our narcissism,” thinking we are owed because we were wronged or deprived. (This was Tiger Woods to the detail.) It’s dangerous business, though, creating a monster to protect your wounded inner child.

The insecure lens. The anxious lens. The persecuted lens. The prove-them-all-wrong lens. The will-you-be-my-father? lens that Leonardo had. These adaptations, developed early on to make sense of the world, don’t make our lives easier. On the contrary. Who can be happy that way? Would you put a nine-year-old in charge of anything stressful or dangerous or important?

After recognizing and embracing our inner child, the third function of mindfulness is to soothe and relieve our difficult emotions. Just by holding this child gently, we are soothing our difficult emotions and we can begin to feel at ease. When we embrace our strong emotions with mindfulness and concentration, we’ll be able to see the roots of these mental formations. We’ll know where our suffering has come from. When we see the roots of things, our suffering will lessen. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and relieves.

Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story. Try it, if you can.

Every man has a passion gnawing away at the bottom of his heart, just as every fruit has its worm. —ALEXANDRE DUMAS

And is this not at odds with the self-mastery we say we want? A person enslaved to their urges is not free—whether they are a plumber or the president.

There is also a “have your cake and eat it too” immaturity to envy. We don’t simply want what other people have—we want to keep everything we have and add theirs to it, even if those things are mutually exclusive (and on top of that, we also want them to not have it anymore).

What will happen to me if I get what I want? How will I feel after?

Indeed, most desires are at their core irrational emotions, and that’s why stillness requires that we sit down and dissect them. We want to think ahead to the refractory period, to consider the inevitable hangover before we take a drink. When we do that, these desires lose some of their power.

To the Epicureans real pleasure was about freedom from pain and agitation. If wanting something makes you miserable while you don’t have it, doesn’t that diminish the true value of the reward? If getting what you “want” has its consequences too, is that really pleasurable? If the same drive that helps you achieve initially also leads you inevitably to overreach or overdo, is it really an advantage?

None of us are perfect. We have biologies and pathologies that will inevitably trip us up. What we need then is a philosophy and a strong moral code—that sense of virtue—to help us resist what we can, and to give us the strength to pick ourselves back up when we fail and try to do and be better.

To have an impulse and to resist it, to sit with it and examine it, to let it pass by like a bad smell—this is how we develop spiritual strength. This is how we become who we want to be in this world.

Only those of us who take the time to explore, to question, to extrapolate the consequences of our desires have an opportunity to overcome them and to stop regrets before they start. Only they know that real pleasure lies in having a soul that’s true and stable, happy and secure.

History relates no instance in which a conqueror has been surfeited with conquests. —STEFAN ZWEIG

Saying the word “enough” is not enough. Deeply spiritual, introspective work is required to understand what that idea means—work that may well destroy illusions and assumptions we have held our entire lives.

It occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, “Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!” At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.

It is a painful crossroads. Or worse, one that we ignore, stuffing those feelings of existential crisis down, piling on top of them meaningless consumption, more ambition, and the delusion that doing more and more of the same will eventually bring about different results.

The need for of progress can be the enemy of enjoying the process.

There is no stillness for the person who cannot appreciate things as they are, particularly when that person has objectively done so much. The creep of more, more, more is like a hydra. Satisfy one—lop it off the bucket list—and two more grow in its place.

The greatest misfortune is to not know contentment. The word calamity is the desire to acquire. And so those who know the contentment of contentment are always content.

“I think I understand now that the restlessness we feel as we make our plans and chase our ambitions is not the effect of their importance to our happiness and our eagerness to attain them. We are restless because deep in our hearts we know now that our happiness is found elsewhere, and our work, no matter how valuable it is to us or to others, cannot take its place. But we hurry on anyway, and attend to our business because we need to matter, and we don’t always realize we already do.”

They can also take the joy out of the thing we used to love to do. More does nothing for the one who feels less than, who cannot see the wealth that was given to them at birth, that they have accumulated in their relationships and experiences. Solving your problem of poverty is an achievable goal and can be fixed by earning and saving money. No one could seriously claim otherwise. The issue is when we think these activities can address spiritual poverty.

You will never feel okay by way of external accomplishments. Enough comes from the inside. It comes from stepping off the train. From seeing what you already have, what you’ve always had. If a person can do that, they are richer than any billionaire, more powerful than any sovereign.

Now, there is a perfectly understandable worry that contentment will be the end of our careers—that if we somehow satisfy this urge, all progress in our work and in our lives will come to a screeching halt. If everyone felt good, why would they keep trying so hard? First, it must be pointed out that this worry itself is hardly an ideal state of mind. No one does their best work driven by anxiety, and no one should be breeding insecurity in themselves so that they might keep making things. That is not industry, that is slavery.

It’s perfectly possible to do and make good work from a good place. You can be healthy and still and successful.

The beauty was that these creations and insights came from a better—a stiller—place inside both men. They weren’t doing it to prove anything. They didn’t need to impress anyone. They were in the moment. Their motivations were pure. There was no insecurity. No anxiety. No creeping, painful hope that this would finally be the thing that would make them feel whole, that would give them what they had always been lacking.

What do we want more of in life? That’s the question. It’s not accomplishments. It’s not popularity. It’s moments when we feel like we are enough. More presence. More clarity. More insight. More truth. More stillness.

In the face of the Sublime, we feel a shiver … something too large for our minds to encompass. And for a moment, it shakes us out of our smugness and releases us from the deathlike grip of habit and banality. —ROBERT GREENE

Here there was only sky, and a stillness made audible by the brittle grass. Emptiness was so perfect all around me that I felt a part of it, empty myself; there was a moment in which I was nothing at all—almost nothing at all.

The term for this is exstasis—a heavenly experience that lets us step outside ourselves. And these beautiful moments are available to us whenever we want them. All we have to do is open our souls to them.

That was the Way. Nature. The cultivated soil. The growing crops. The satisfaction of good hard work. The poetry of the earth. As it was in the beginning, as it will be forever.

“Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature. Come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.”

Get out now. Not just outside, but beyond the trap of the programmed electronic age so gently closing around so many people… . Go outside, move deliberately, then relax, slow down, look around. Do not jog. Do not run… . Instead pay attention to everything that abuts the rural road, the city street, the suburban boulevard. Walk. Stroll. Saunter. Ride a bike and coast along a lot. Explore. There is peace in this. It is always available to you.

Don’t let the beauty of life escape you. See the world as the temple that it is. Let every experience be churchlike. Marvel at the fact that any of this exists—that you exist. Even when we are killing each other in pointless wars, even when we are killing ourselves with pointless work, we can stop and bathe in the beauty that surrounds us, always. Let it calm you. Let it cleanse you.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

What deity would want the world to live in fear? Living in fear, he said, is incongruent with ataraxia.

The progress of science and technology is essential. But for many of us moderns, it has come at the cost of losing the capacity for awe and for acknowledging forces beyond our comprehension. It has deprived us of the ability to access spiritual stillness and piety.

Realism is important. Pragmatism and scientism and skepticism are too. They all have their place. But still, you have to believe in something. You just have to. Or else everything is empty and cold.

Here I stand, I can do no other; so help me God.

It’s not that we need to believe that God is great, only that God is greater than us.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. —SENECA

A house without family is no home.

A good relationship requires us to be virtuous, faithful, present, empathetic, generous, open, and willing to be a part of a larger whole. It requires, in order to create growth, real surrender.

Stillness is best not sought alone. And, like success, it is best when shared. We all need someone who understands us better than we understand ourselves, if only to keep us honest.

By ourselves, we are a fraction of what we can be. By ourselves, something is missing, and, worse, we feel that in our bones. Which is why stillness requires other people; indeed, it is for other people.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. —PROVERBS 16:32

“Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”

There is no more stupefying thing than anger, nothing more bent on its own strength. If successful, none more arrogant, if foiled, none more insane—since it’s not driven back by weariness even in defeat, when fortune removes its adversary it turns its teeth on itself.

It’s great to be able to stop When you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong, And be able to do something else instead And think this song

Our stillness depends on our ability to slow down and choose not to be angry, to run on different fuel. Fuel that helps us win and build, and doesn’t hurt other people, our cause, or our chance at peace.

All that you behold, that which comprises both god and man, is one—we are the parts of one great body. —SENECA

The Christian word for this term is agape. It is the ecstasy of love from a higher power, the sheer luck and good fortune of being made in that image.

Whether it comes from the perspective of space, a religious epiphany, or the silence of meditation, the understanding that we are all connected—that we are all one—is a transformative experience.

“That one sees that the human race as one person,” he wrote, with each of us as an individual part of one single body, “enables him to see that originality is necessary, for there is no need for eye to do what hand does so well.”

The truly philosophical view is that not only is originality necessary, but everyone is necessary. Even the people you don’t like. Even the ones who really piss you off. Even the people wasting their lives, cheating, or breaking the rules are part of the larger equation.

To understand all is to forgive all. To love all is to be at peace with all, including yourself.

You can do the same with your pain. As bad as you might feel in a given moment, this too is a shared feeling, a connection with others. The man stepping outside to take a walk after an argument with his spouse. The mother worrying about her child, the one who seems to always be in trouble. The merchant stressing over where the money will come from—How will I keep going? Two siblings grieving the loss of a parent. The average citizen following the news, hoping their country will avoid an unnecessary war.

No one is alone, in suffering or in joy.

Finding the universal in the personal, and the personal in the universal, is not only the secret to art and leadership and even entrepreneurship, it is the secret to centering oneself. It both turns down the volume of noise in the world and tunes one in to the quiet wavelength of wisdom that sages and philosophers have long been on.

We share a planet with billions of other sentient beings, and they all have their own complex ways of being whatever they are. All of our fellow animal creatures, as Aristotle observed long ago, try to stay alive and reproduce more of their kind. All of them perceive. All of them desire. And most move from place to place to get what they want and need.

The less we are convinced of our exceptionalism, the greater ability we have to understand and contribute to our environment, the less blindly driven we are by our own needs, the more clearly we can appreciate the needs of those around us, the more we can appreciate the larger ecosystem of which we are a part.

Peace is what allows us to take joy in the success of others and to let them take joy in our own. Peace is what motivates a person to be good, to treat every other living thing well, because they understand that it is a way to treat themselves well.

We are one big collective organism engaged in one endless project together. We are one. We are the same. Still, too often we forget it, and we forget ourselves in the process.

Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint. —CONFUCIUS

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

In concert with each other—clarity in the mind and in the soul—we find both excellence and unbreakable tranquility. It is with the heart and soul that we are able to surface important things that the eyes need to see.

A body that is overworked or abused is not only actually not still, it creates turbulence that ripples through the rest of our lives. A mind that is overtaxed and ill-treated is susceptible to vice and corruption. A spoiled, lazy existence is the manifestation of spiritual emptiness. We can be active, we can be on the move, and still be still. Indeed, we have to be active for the stillness to have any meaning.

Life is hard. Fortune is fickle. We can’t afford to be weak. We can’t afford to be fragile. We must strengthen our bodies as the physical vessel for our minds and spirit, subject to the capriciousness of the physical world.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Immediately, Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.”

Life does that to us. It kicks our ass. Everything we work for can be taken away. All our powers can be rendered impotent in a moment. What follows this is not just an issue of spirit or the mind, it’s a real physical question: What do you do with your time? How do you handle the stress of the whiplash?

The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making—once!

If we are to be half as productive as Churchill, and manage to capture the same joy and zest and stillness that defined his life, there are traits we will need to cultivate. Each of us will need to: Rise above our physical limitations. Find hobbies that rest and replenish us. Develop a reliable, disciplined routine. Spend time getting active outdoors. Seek out solitude and perspective. Learn to sit—to do nothing when called for. Get enough sleep and rein in our workaholism. Commit to causes bigger than ourselves.

This will take effort. Because we will not simply think our way to peace. We can’t pray our soul into better condition. We’ve got to move and live our way there. It will take our body—our habits, our actions, our rituals, our self-care—to get our mind and our spirit in the right place, just as it takes our mind and spirit to get our body to the right place. It’s a trinity. A holy one. Each part dependent on the others.

The advantages of nonaction. Few in the world attain these. —THE DAODEJING

A truly great hitter—not just a swinger—needs quick hands and powerful hips, to be sure, but they must also possess the power of wu wei, or nonaction.

Wu wei is the ability to hold the bat back—waiting until the batter sees the perfect pitch. It is the yogi in meditation.

One recent study found that subjects would rather give themselves an electric shock than experience boredom for even a few minutes. Then we wonder why people do so many stupid things.

Somebody who thinks they’re nothing and don’t matter because they’re not doing something for even a few days is depriving themselves of stillness, yes—but they are also closing themselves off from a higher plane of performance that comes out of it.

Spiritually, that’s hard. Physically, it’s harder still. You have to make yourself say no. You have to make yourself not take the stage.

Each of us needs to get better at saying no. As in, “No, sorry, I’m not available.” “No, sorry, that sounds great but I’d rather not.” “No, I’m going to wait and see.” “No, I don’t like that idea.” “No, I don’t need that—I’m going to make the most of what I have.” “No, because if I said yes to you, I’d have to say yes to everyone.”

Always think about what you’re really being asked to give. Because the answer is often a piece of your life, usually in exchange for something you don’t even want. Remember, that’s what time is. It’s your life, it’s your flesh and blood, that you can never get back.

In every situation ask: What is it? Why does it matter? Do I need it? Do I want it? What are the hidden costs? Will I look back from the distant future and be glad I did it? If I never knew about it at all—if the request was lost in the mail, if they hadn’t been able to pin me down to ask me—would I even notice that I missed out?

When we know what to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.

It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

If a person puts even one measure of effort into following ritual and the standards of righteousness, he will get back twice as much. —XUNZI

It was Eisenhower who defined freedom as the opportunity for self-discipline. In fact, freedom and power and success require self-discipline. Because without it, chaos and complacency move in. Discipline, then, is how we maintain that freedom.

When our thoughts are empty and our body is in its groove, we do our best work.

Done enough times, done with sincerity and feeling, routine becomes ritual. The regularity of it—the daily cadence—creates deep and meaningful experience.

When the body is busy with the familiar, the mind can relax. The monotony becomes muscle memory. To deviate seems dangerous, wrong. As if it’s inviting failure in.

For this, we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.

To make that possible, you must go now and get your house in order. Get your day scheduled. Limit the interruptions. Limit the number of choices you need to make.

A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred. And so must we.

For property is poverty and fear; only to have possessed something and to have let go of it means carefree ownership. —RAINER MARIA RILKE

In short, mental and spiritual independence matter little if the things we own in the physical world end up owning us.

“If a man can reduce his needs to zero,” he said, “he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.” To that we would add, “And he or she can also be still.”

There is also what we can term “comfort creep.” We get so used to a certain level of convenience and luxury that it becomes almost inconceivable that we used to live without it. As wealth grows, so does our sense of “normal.” But just a few years ago we were fine without this bounty. We had no problem eating ramen or squeezing into a small apartment. But now that we have more, our mind begins to lie to us. You need this. Be anxious that you might lose it. Protect it. Don’t share. It’s toxic and scary.

You were born free—free of stuff, free of burden. But since the first time they measured your tiny body for clothes, people have been foisting stuff upon you. And you’ve been adding links to the pile of chains yourself ever since.

A crowded world thinks that aloneness is always loneliness and that to seek it is perversion. —JOHN GRAVES

“If I was to sum up the single biggest problem of senior leadership in the Information Age,” four-star Marine Corps general and former secretary of defense James Mattis has said, “it’s lack of reflection. Solitude allows you to reflect while others are reacting. We need solitude to refocus on prospective decision-making, rather than just reacting to problems as they arise.”

To pray and work in the morning and to labor and rest in the afternoon, and to sit still again in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence.

Work is what horses die of. Everybody should know that. —ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

but life is much more of a marathon than it is a sprint. In a way, this is the distinction between confidence and ego.

Good decisions are not made by those who are running on empty. What kind of interior life can you have, what kind of thinking can you do, when you’re utterly and completely overworked?

It’s human being, not human doing, for a reason. Moderation. Being present. Knowing your limits. This is the key. The body that each of us has was a gift. Don’t work it to death. Don’t burn it out. Protect the gift.

There is a time for many words and there is a time for sleep. —HOMER, THE ODYSSEY

It was an epic implosion along relatively common lines. The overworked person creates a crisis that they try to solve by working harder. Mistakes are piled upon mistakes by the exhausted, delirious mind. The more they try, the worse it gets and the angrier they get that no one appreciates their sacrifice.

Arthur Schopenhauer used to say that “sleep is the source of all health and energy.”

“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”

Indeed, your mind and soul are incapable of peace when your body is battling for survival, when it is drawing on its reserves for even basic functioning. Happiness? Stillness? Milking the solitude or beauty out of your surroundings? Out of the question for the exhausted, overworked fool.

Abusing the body leads the mind to abuse itself.

If you want peace, there is just one thing to do. If you want to be your best, there is just one thing to do. Go to sleep.

This is the main question, with what activity one’s leisure is filled. —ARISTOTLE

Leisure is not the absence of activity, it is activity. What is absent is any external justification—you can’t do leisure for pay, you can’t do it to impress people.

“If an action tires your body but puts your heart at ease,”

There’s nothing to feel guilty about for being idle. It’s not reckless. It’s an investment. There is nourishment in pursuits that have no purpose—that is their purpose.

Getting to know yourself is the luxury of the success you’ve had. Finding fulfillment and joy in the pursuit of higher things, you’ve earned it. It’s there for you, take it. Make the time. Build the discipline. You deserve it. You need it. Your stillness depends on it.

Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell. —JOHN MILTON

The one thing you can’t escape in your life is yourself.

Stand in front of the mirror. Get to know your front porch. You were given one body when you were born—don’t try to be someone else, somewhere else. Get to know yourself. Build a life that you don’t need to escape from.

To see people who will notice a need in the world and do something about it… . Those are my heroes. —FRED ROGERS

High-minded thoughts and inner work are one thing, but all that matters is what you do. The health of our spiritual ideals depends on what we do with our bodies in moments of truth.

What is better? To live as a coward or to die a hero? To fall woefully short of what you know to be right or to fall in the line of duty? And which is more natural? To refuse a call from your fellow humans or to dive in bravely and help them when they need you?

A person who does good regularly will feel good. A person who contributes to their community will feel like they are a part of one. A person who puts their body to good use—volunteering, protecting, serving, standing up for—will not need to treat it like an amusement park to get some thrills.

Pick up the phone and make the call to tell someone what they mean to you. Share your wealth. Run for office. Pick up the trash you see on the ground. Step in when someone is being bullied. Step in even if you’re scared, even if you might get hurt. Tell the truth. Maintain your vows, keep your word. Stretch out a hand to someone who has fallen.

Do the hard good deeds. “You must do the thing you cannot do,” Eleanor Roosevelt said.

If you see fraud, and do not say fraud, the philosopher Nassim Taleb has said, you are a fraud. Worse, you will feel like a fraud. And you will never feel proud or happy or confident.

If we want to be good and feel good, we have to do good. There is no escaping this. Dive in when you hear the cry for help. Reach out when you see the need. Do kindness where you can. Because you’ll have to find a way to live with yourself if you don’t.

As a well-spent day brings a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death. —LEONARDO DA VINCI

We must learn to think rationally and clearly about our own fate. We must find spiritual meaning and goodness while we are alive. We must treat the vessel we inhabit on this planet well—or we will be forced to abandon it early.

Death brings an end to everything, to our minds, our souls, and our bodies, in a final, permanent stillness. So we end this book there as well.

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