Inject some Stillness into your life
Don’t always be ‘on the move.’ You and I live in a world where overconsumption is the norm. As soon as we wake up from a groggy sleep of mindless scrolling on our phones what is the first thing we do? You check your notifications, again! Why?!... Think about how that has set up your day, and your life. The quality of a day is made up by how you make the most of your morning. The quality of your life is made up by how you make the most of your days.
“It is not death a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” Marcus Aurelius.
Is checking what the world is up to first thing in the morning living? To be a salve to other people’s requests, messages, schedules, and twenty different social inboxes. You can’t always know what’s going on. Unless you want your mental health to be destroyed.
“Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment and ask yourself:” Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself, “Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore?”
How many times have you stopped yourself, really, and asked “What I am doing, is this necessary?” I bet it’s very low. Is life going to be any worse if you don’t submit yourself straight away to the hundreds of emails waiting for you from yesterday? Probably not.
How do we fix this?
The answer: Do NOT be so reachable. Inject some stillness into your life. You can’t always be reachable. You must have time for yourself. It’s essential.
Put your phone on aeroplane mode when you’re going through your morning routine, go for a walk into nature and leave your devices behind for a little while. We don’t want to be bombarded straight away; our minds will turn to mush.
The mind, like any muscle, must be first warmed up before it gets into the main activity it’s meant to perform.
We want to cultivate a calm mind. A calm, still mind is best for any situation life throws at you.
How do you find stillness? Any way you can. People get the idea of peace wrong. I learnt what is peace from angel investor, businessman and philosopher Naval Ravikant in his book written by Eric Jorgenson The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
Naval: Let’s talk about peace, and then we’ll talk about truth and how they relate to happiness.
When I say you want to be happy, what I’m actually saying is you want to find peace. We say peace of mind, but what we really want is peace from mind.
The mind goes quiet during the moments of greatest pleasure
During your moments of greatest pleasure—whether you’re doing a drug, having an orgasm, finding your edge kite-surfing, laughing with a friend or looking at an incredible sunset—your mind goes quiet. It calms down, and that voice in your head goes silent. You achieve a sense of awe, which you might also call beauty, bliss or joy.
We all seek this. We all chase it. Deep down, what we’re actually looking for is peace from mind.
Somewhere along the way, the mind became a master
I’m not making the mind out to be an enemy. It’s a very useful tool. But somewhere along the way, it became uncontrollable. The mind became the master rather than a servant.
Our mind evolved to be paranoid, fearful and angry. Humans are the most paranoid and angry creatures to ever walk the earth. We are apex predators who dominated the food chain by killing, subjugating or domesticating every other species on this planet. We did it through fear, violence and, of course, cooperation.
Nature is brutal. Turn on any nature documentary and you’ll see: A eats B; B eats C; C eats D; D eats E. Nature is red in tooth and claw. We are derived from violence and blood.
Our environment rewards pessimism and paranoia
Modern society’s a lot safer and more peaceful. It still makes sense to be careful, maintain some paranoia and occasionally to get angry—but not as much as we’re hardwired to do. It’s okay to dial it down.
The threat level is not as high as our genes think. If you were walking through the woods 1,000 years ago and heard something rustling in the bushes, you’d be right to be paranoid. Let’s say nine out of 10 times it’s a rabbit in the bushes, and one out of 10 times it’s a tiger. The optimist would catch a rabbit nine out of 10 times and get eaten by a tiger the 10th. The pessimist survives every time.
Our evolved nature rewards pessimism. But we live in much safer times, so we must find ways past that and work towards peace.
When your thoughts aren’t running around like a headless chicken. When the mind is quiet when the mind is still. This is what you want; this is where you are in your element. Do this and your experience of life will be much better.
Learn to stop, slow down, and be still. You’ll discover life has so much beauty to offer in the moments you would have missed before.
Until next time,
Brody
