I just read a chapter from Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday and the last line hit me hard. Maybe it will mean something to one of you as well. Below are some excerpts from this chapter (my summary with much fluff removed).
You can’t flee despair. You can’t escape, with your body, problems that exist in your mind and soul. You can’t run away from your choices – you can only fix them with better choices.
There’s nothing wrong with a good vacation (particularly if the aim is solitude and quiet) or a round of golf.
But too often, the frenzied or the miserable think that an escape – literal or chemical – is a positive good.
But when that wears off? What’s left?
The one thing you can’t escape in your life is yourself. Anyone who’s traveled long enough knows this. It’s eventually clear we carry with us on the road more baggage than just our suitcase and our backpacks.
You have to be still enough to discover what’s really going on. You have to let the muddy water settle. That can’t happen if you’re jetting off from one place to another, if you’re packing your schedule with every activity you can think of in order to avoid the possibility of having to spend even a moment alone with your own thoughts.
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful – more free of interruptions, than your own soul.
The next time we feel the urge to flee, to hit the road or bury ourselves in work or activity, we need to catch ourselves. Don’t book a cross-country flight – go for a walk instead. Don’t get high – get some solitude, find some quiet. These are far easier, far more accessible, and ultimately far more sustainable strategies for accessing the stillness we were born with. Travel inside your heart and your mind, and let the body stay put.
Tuning out accomplishes nothing. Tune In.
Stand in front of the mirror. Get to know your front porch.
Build a life that you don’t need to escape from!
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