Stillness is the key an ancient strategy for modern life

The struggle is great the task is divine to gain mastery freedom happiness and tranquility -epithets 

Contents 

part 1 mind 

The domain of mind 

Become present

 limit your inputs 

Empty the mind 

Slow down think deeply 

Start Journaling 

Cultivate silence 

Seek wisdom 

Find confidence avoid ego 

Let go

On to what's next 

Part 2 spirit 

The domain of the soul 

Choose virtue 

Heal the inner child 

Beware desire 

Enough 

Bathe in beauty 

Accept a higher power 

Enter relationships 

Conquer your anger 

All is one 

On to what's next 

Part 3 body 

The domain of the body 

Say no 

Take a walk 

Build a routine 

Get rid of your stuff 

Seek solitude 

Be a human being 

Go to sleep 

Find a hobby

Beware escapism 

Act bravely 

On to the final act 

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.

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. 

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. 

Develop a strong moral compass. Steer clear of envy and jealousy and harmful desires.

 Come to terms with the painful wounds of their childhood.

 Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around them. 

Cultivate relationships and love in their lives. 

Place belief and control in the hands of something larger than themselves. Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy.

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. 

 Clear. Calm. Kind. Still.

Mind~spirit~body ◇

Stillness each depends on each other 

Sync-steady-stable 

Preface 

Seneca was struggling to work 

More than the noise outside his window from street 

He toughened his nerves against all sorts of thing focus concentration to keep inside don't distracted by outside 

To be steady while the world spins around you to act without French to hear py what needed to be heard to possess quietitude exterior and interior on command 

All wisdom philosophy religion accept it Its a fool who ignores it 

Introduction

The  to stiles comes quietly not the modern world does 

We have car horns stereos cell phone alarms social media notification chainsaws airplanes 

Our personal and professional problems are equally over whelming 

Competitors muscle in our industry 

 Our desks pile high with papers and our inboxes overflow with messages. We are always reachable which means that arguments and up- dates are never far away. The news bombards us with one crisis after another on every screen we own-of which there are many. The grind of work wears us down and seems to never stop. We are overfed and undernourished. Overstimulated, oversched- uled, and lonely.

Who has the power to stop? Who has time to think? Is there anyone not affected by the din and dysfunctions of our time?

While the magnitude and urgency of our struggle is modern,it is rooted in a timeless problem. Indeed, history shows that the ability to cultivate quiet and quell the turmoil inside us, to slow the mind down, to understand our emotions, and to conquer our bodies has always been extremely difficult. "All of humanity's problems," Blaise Pascal said in 1654, "stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

In evolution, distinct species-like birds and bats-have often evolved similar adaptations in order to survive. The same goes for the philosophical schools separated by vast oceans and dis- tances. They developed unique paths to the same critical desti- nation: The stillness required to become master of one's own life. To survive and thrive in any and every environment, no matter how loud or busy.

Which is why this idea of stillness is not some soft New Age nonsense or the domain of monks and sages, but in fact desper-ately necessary to all of us, whether we're running a hedge fund or playing in a Super Bowl, pioneering research in a new field or raising a family.

It is an attainable path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence, for every kind of person.

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 grati- tude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks the insights of genius, and allows us regu- lar folks to understand them.

The promise of this book is the location of that key...and a call not only for possessing stillness, but for radiating it out- ward like a star-like the sun for a world that needs light more than ever.

The Key to Everything

In the early days of the American Civil War, there were a hun- dred competing plans for how to secure victory and whom to ap- point to do it. From every general and for every battle there was an endless supply of criticism and dangerous passions-there was paranoia and fear, ego and arrogance, and very little in the way of hope.

There is a wonderful scene from those fraught first moments when Abraham Lincoln addressed a group of generals and poli- ticians in his office at the White House. Most people at that time believed the war could only be won through enormous, decisively bloody battles in the country's biggest cities, like Richmond and New Orleans and even, potentially, Washington, D.C.

Lincoln, a man who taught himself military strategy by por- ing over books he checked out from the Library of Congress, laid out a map across a big table and pointed instead to Vicksburg, Mississippi, a little city deep in Southern territory. It was a for- tified town high on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, held by the toughest rebel troops. Not only did it control navigation of that important waterway, but it was a juncture for a number of other important tributaries, as well as rail lines that supplied

Confederate armies and enormous slave plantations across the South.

"Vicksburg is the key," he told the crowd with the certainty of a man who had studied a matter šo intensely that he could ex- press it in the simplest of terms. "The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket."

As it happened, Lincoln turned out to be exactly right. It would take years, it would take incredible equanimity and pa- tience, as well as ferocious commitment to his cause, but the strategy laid out in that room was what won the war and ended slavery in America forever. Every other important victory in the Civil War-from Gettysburg to Sherman's March to the Sea to Lee's surrender-was made possible because at Lincoln's in- struction Ulysses S. Grant laid siege to Vicksburg in 1863, and by taking the city split the South in two and gained control of that important waterway. In his reflective, intuitive manner, without being rushed or distracted, Lincoln had seen (and held fast to) what his own advisors, and even his enemy, had missed. Because he possessed the key that unlocked victory from the rancor and folly of all those early competing plans.

In our own lives, we face a seemingly equal number of problems and are pulled in countless directions by competing priorities and beliefs. In the way of everything we hope to ac- complish, personally and professionally, sit obstacles and ene- mies. 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 princi-

ples, 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 rail- road 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.

Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything.

To being a better parent, a better artist, a better investor, a better athlete, a better scientist, a better human being. To un- locking all that we are capable of in this life.

This Stillness Can Be Yours

Anyone who has concentrated so deeply that a flash of insight or inspiration suddenly visited them knows stillness Anyone who has given their best to something, felt pride of completion, of knowing they left absolutely nothing in reserve-that's still. ness. Anyone who has stepped forward with the eyes of the crowd upon them and then poured all their training into à single moment of performance-that's stillness, even if it in- volves active movement. Anyone who has spent time with that special, wise person, and witnessed them solve in two sec- onds the problem that had vexed us for months-stillness. Anyone who has walked out alone on a quiet street at night as the snow fell, and watched as the light fell softly on that snow and is warmed by the contentment of being alive-that too is stillness.

Staring at the blank page in front of us and watching as the words pour out in perfect prose, at a loss for where they came from; standing on fine white sand, looking out at the ocean, or really any part of nature, and feeling like part of something big- ger than oneself; a quiet evening with a loved one; the satisfac- tion of having done a good turn for another person; sitting, alone with our thoughts, and seizing for the first time the ability to think about them as we were thinking them. Stillness.

Sure, there is a certain ineffableness to what we're talking about, to articulating the stillness that the poet Rainer Maria Rilke described as "full, complete" where "all the random and approximate were muted."

"Although we speak of attaining the dao," Lao Tzu once said, "there is really nothing to obtain." Or to borrow a master's reply to a student who asked where he might find Zen: "You are seek- ing for an ox while you are yourself on it."

You have tasted stillness before. You have felt it in your soul.

And you want more of it.

You need more of it.

Which is why the aim of this book is simply to show how to uncover and draw upon the stillness we already possess. It's about the cultivation of and the connection to that powerful force given to us at birth, the one that has atrophied in our mod- ern, busy lives. This book is an attempt to answer the pressing question of our time: If the quiet moments are the best mo- ments, and if so many wise, virtuous people have sung their praises, why are they so rare?

Well, the answer is that while we may naturally possess stillness, accessing it it is is not easy. One must really listen to hear it speaking to us. And answering the call requires stamina and mastery. "To hold the mind still is an enormous discipline," the late comedian Garry Shandling reminded himself in his jour- nal as he struggled to manage fame and fortune and health prob- lems, "one which must be faced with the greatest commitment of your life."

The pages that follow tell the stories and strategies of men and women who were just like you, who struggled as you strug- gle amid the noise and responsibilities of life, but managed to succeed in finding and harnessing stillness. You will hear stories of the triumphs and trials of John F. Kennedy and Fred Rogers,

Anne Frank and Queen Victoria. There will be stories about Jesus and Tiger Woods, Socrates, Napoleon, the composer John Cage, Sadaharu Oh, Rosanne Cash, Dorothy Day, Buddha, Leo- nardo da Vinci, Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius.

We will also draw on poetry and novels, philosophical texts and scientific research. We will raid every school and every era we can to find strategies to help us direct our thoughts, process our emotions, and master our bodies. So we can do less... and do more. Accomplish more but need it less. Feel better and be better at the same time.

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

In each domain, we will seek to reduce the disturbances and perturbations that make stillness impossible. To cease to be at war with the world and within ourselves, and to establish a last- ing inner and outer peace instead.

You know that is what you want and what you deserve. That's why you picked up this book.

So let us answer the call together. Let us find-let us lock into the stillness that we seek.

PART I

MIND head SPIRIT Heart  BODY  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

The domain of the mind 

Jf Kennedy Cuban missile crisis 

he quoted this passage: 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. It became Kennedy’s motto during the Missile Crisis. “I think we ought to think of why the Russians did this,” he told his advisors.

the ancient Chinese text The Daodejing. As he stared down nuclear annihilation, he was: 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. The Daoists would say that he had stilled the muddied water in his mind until he could see through it

Each of us will, in our own lives, face crisis. The stakes may be lower, but to us they will matter. A business on the brink of collapse. An acrimonious divorce. A decision about the future of our career. A moment where the whole game depends on us. These situations will call upon all our mental resources. An emotional, reactive response— an unthinking, half-baked response—will not cut it. Not if we want to get it right. Not if we want to perform at our best. What we will need then is that same stillness that Kennedy drew upon. His calmness. His open-mindedness. His empathy. His clarity about what really mattered.

 In these situations we must: 

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. 

We must cultivate mental stillness to succeed in life and to successfully navigate the many crises it throws our way. It will not be easy. But it is essential.

Peopel will misunderstood as he is incapable feared of user becuase he didn't fight back instead blockade of Cuban area and ask Russia to withdrawal missiles he takes time recharged relaxed ways silent to think of solutions and give time to enemy to recheck their moves in favor of worlds safety from world War to end this cold war 

s. But with hard work—work you are capable of doing too— he overcame those shortcomings and developed the equanimity that served him so well over those terrifying thirteen days. 

Which is where we will now turn our focus—toward mastering what we will call in this section “the domain of the mind”—because everything we do depends on getting that right.

Becomes present 

Abromviko marina competition to sit still

Imagine: If Marina’s mind drifted, if she daydreamed, the person across from her could immediately sense that she was somewhere else. If she slowed her mind and body down too much, she might have fallen asleep. If she allowed for normal bodily sensations— hunger, discomfort, pain, the urge to go to the bathroom—it would be impossible not to move or get up. If she began to think of how much time was left in the day’s performance, time would slow to an intolerable crawl. So with monklike discipline and warriorlike strength she ignored these distractions to exist exclusively in the present moment. She had to be where her feet were; she had to care about the person across from her and the experience they were sharing more than anything else in the world.

Being present demands all of us. It’s not nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world. As we stand on the podium, about to give a speech, our mind is focused not on our task but on what everyone will think of us. How does that not affect our performance? As we struggle with a crisis,

our mind repeats on a loop just how unfair this is, how insane it is that it keeps happening and how it can’t go on. Why are we draining ourselves of essential emotional and mental energies right when we need them most? Even during a quiet evening at home, all we’re thinking about is the list of improvements that need to be made. There may be a beautiful sunset, but instead of taking it in, we’re taking a picture of it. We are not present . . . and so we miss out. On life. On being our best. On seeing what’s there

In short, did they do exactly what all of us do most of every single day? We do not live in this moment. We, in fact, try desperately to get out of it—by thinking, doing, talking, worrying, remembering, hoping, whatever. We pay thousands of dollars to have a device in our pocket to ensure that we are never bored. We sign up for endless activities and obligations, chase money and accomplishments, all with the naïve belief that at the end of it will be happiness.

 The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us. We want to learn to see the world like an artist: While other people are oblivious to what surrounds them, the artist really sees. Their mind, fully engaged, notices the way a bird flies or the way a stranger holds their fork or a mother looks at her child. They have no thoughts of the morrow. All they are thinking about is how to capture and communicate this experience. An artist is present. And from this stillness comes brilliance. This moment we are experiencing right now is a gift (that’s why we call it the present). Even if it is a stressful, trying experience—it could be our last. So let’s develop the ability to be in it, to put everything we have into appreciating the plentitude of the now. 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. In meditation, teachers instruct students to focus on their breath. In and out. In and out. In sports, coaches speak about “the process”—this play, this drill, this rep. Not just because this moment is special, but because you can’t do your best if your mind is elsewhere. We would do well to follow this in our own lives. Jesus told his disciples not to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will take care of itself. Another way of saying that is: You have plenty on your plate right now. Focus on that, no matter how small or insignificant it is. Do the very best you can right now.Don’t think about what detractors may say. Don’t dwell or needlessly complicate. Be here. Be all of you. Be present. And if you’ve had trouble with this in the past? That’s okay. That’s the nice thing about the present. It keeps showing up to give you a second chance.

Limits your input 

A s a general, Napoleon made it his habit to delay responding to the mail. His secretary was instructed to wait three weeks before opening any correspondence. When he finally did hear what was in a letter, Napoleon loved to note how many supposedly “important” issues had simply resolved themselves and no longer required a reply. While Napoleon was certainly an eccentric leader, he was never negligent in his duties or out of touch with his government or his soldiers. But in order to be active and aware of what actually mattered, he had to be selective about who and what kind of information got access to his brain. In a similar vein, he told messengers never to wake him with good news. Bad news, on the other hand—that is to say, an unfolding crisis or an urgent development that negatively impacted his campaign—was to be brought to him immediately. “Rouse me instantly,” he said, “for then there is not a moment to be lost.” These were both brilliant accommodations to the reality of life for a busy person: 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.

In the modern world, this is not easy. In the 1990s, political scientists began to study what they called the “CNN Effect.” Breathless, twenty-four-hour media coverage makes it considerably harder for politicians and CEOs to be anything but reactive. There’s too much information, every trivial detail is magnified under the microscope, speculation is rampant—and the mind is overwhelmed. The CNN Effect is now a problem for everyone, not just presidents and generals. Each of us has access to more information than we could ever reasonably use. We tell ourselves that it’s part of our job, that we have to be “on top of things,” and so we give up precious time to news, reports, meetings, and other forms of feedback. Even if we’re not glued to a television, we’re still surrounded by gossip and drama and other distractions. We must stop this. “If you wish to improve,” Epictetus once said, “be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.” Napoleon was content with being behind on his mail, even if it upset some people or if he missed out on some gossip, because it meant that trivial problems had to resolve themselves without him. We need to cultivate a similar attitude—give things a little space, don’t consume news in real time, be a season or two behind on the latest trend or cultural phenomenon, don’t let your inbox lord over your life. The important stuff will still be important by the time you get to it. The unimportant will have made its insignificance obvious (or simply disappeared). Then, with stillness rather than needless urgency or exhaustion, you will be able to sit down and give what deserves consideration your full attention. There is ego in trying to stay up on everything, whether it’s an acclaimed television show, the newest industry rumor, the smartest hot take, or the hottest crisis in [the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the climate, the World Bank, the NATO Summit, ad infinitum]. There is ego in trying to appear the most informed person in the room, the one with all the gossip, who knows every single thing that’s happening in everyone’s life. Not only does this cost us our peace of mind, but there’s a serious opportunity cost too. If we were stiller, more confident, had the

The point is, it’s very difficult to think or act clearly (to say nothing of being happy) when we are drowning in information. It’s why lawyers attempt to bury the other side in paper. It’s why intelligence operatives flood the enemy with propaganda, so they’ll lose the scent of the truth. It’s not a coincidence that the goal of these tactics is casually referred to as analysis paralysis. Yet we do this to ourselves! A century and a half after Napoleon, another great general and, later, head of state, Dwight D. Eisenhower, struggled to manage the torrent of facts and fiction that was thrown at him. His solution was strict adherence to the chain of command when it came to information. No one was to hand him unopened mail, no one was to just throw half-explored problems at him. Too much depended on the stillness within that he needed to operate to allow such haphazard information flow. One of his innovations was to organize information and problems into what’s now called the “Eisenhower Box,” a matrix that orders our priorities by their ratio of urgency and importance. Much that was happening in the world or on the job, Eisenhower found, was urgent but not important. Meanwhile, most of what was truly important was not remotely time-sensitive. Categorizing his inputs helped him organize his staff around what was important versus what seemed urgent, allowed them to be strategic rather than

reactive, a mile deep on what mattered rather than an inch on too many things. 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. Because if the boss doesn’t? Well, then nobody can. 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. It’s as true of food as it is of information. There’s a great saying: Garbage in, garbage out. If you want good output, you have to watch over the inputs. This will take discipline. It will not be easy. This means fewer alerts and notifications. It means blocking incoming texts with the Do Not Disturb function and funneling emails to subfolders. It means questioning that “open door” policy, or even where you live. It means pushing away selfish people who bring needless drama into our lives. It means studying the world more philosophically—that is, with a long-term perspective—rather than following events second by second. The way you feel when you awake early in the morning and your mind is fresh and as yet unsoiled by the noise of the outside world— that’s space worth protecting. So too is the zone you lock into when you’re really working well. Don’t let intrusions bounce you out of it.

in silence?” he asks. 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. It is in this stillness that we can be present and finally see truth. It is in this stillness that we can hear the voice inside us. 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? All this noise. All this information. All these inputs. We are afraid of the silence. We are afraid of looking stupid. We are afraid of missing out. 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.

Empty the mind 

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

e slowly, patiently, quietly cleared his mind. With each swing, he tried to focus on the mechanics, the placement of his feet, really planting himself where his feet were—not thinking of the past, not worrying about what was coming in the future, not thinking about the fans or how he wanted to hit the ball. Really, he wasn’t thinking at all. Instead, he repeated an old Zen proverb to himself: Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water. Don’t overanalyze. Do the work. Don’t think. Hit. In his first at bat on that day, Green took two strikes in the first two pitches. His mind burbled a bit—Is the slump going to keep

ow his mind was tempted to race in a different direction, his brain filled with congratulations instead of doubts. You’re killing it. How exciting is this? Are you going to get another hit? You could set a record! Just like the overactive voice in a slump, the voice in a streak is an equally deleterious racing mental loop. Both get in the way. Both make a hard thing harder. As Shawn Green stepped into the batter’s box for the sixth and final time, he said to himself, “There’s no sense in thinking now.” He cleared his mind, and enjoyed himself like a kid at a Little League game. No pressure. Just presence. Just happy to be there.

But Green was already clearing that all away, and coming back to his routine. He took off his batting gloves and swept the experience from his mind, keeping it empty to use in the next game. *

The goal of Zen, his master taught him, was to “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.

the success of any leader or athlete or artist. The problem is that, unthinkingly, we think too much. The “wild and whirling words” of our subconscious get going and suddenly there’s no room for our training (or anything else). We’re overloaded, overwhelmed, and distracted . . . by our own mind!

But if we can clear space, if we can consciously empty our mind, as Green did, insights and breakthroughs happen. The perfect swing connects perfectly with the ball. There is a beautiful paradox to this idea of void. The Daodejing points out that when clay is formed around emptiness, it becomes a pitcher that can hold water. Water from the pitcher is poured into a cup, which is itself formed around emptiness. The room this all happens in is itself four walls formed around emptiness.

We’ve all experienced that—Don’t mess up. Don’t mess up. Don’t forget, we say to ourselves—and what happens? We do exactly what we were trying not to do! Whatever you face, whatever you’re doing will require, first and foremost, that you don’t defeat yourself. That you don’t make it harder by overthinking, by needless doubts, or by second-guessing. That space between your ears—that’s yours. You don’t just have to control what gets in, you also have to control what goes on in there. You have to protect it from yourself, from your own thoughts. Not with sheer force, but rather with a kind of gentle, persistent sweeping. Be the librarian who says “Shhh!” to the rowdy kids, or tells the jerk on his phone to please take it outside. Because the mind is an important and sacred place. Keep it clean and clear.

Slow down think deeply 

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

Epictetus talked about how the job of a philosopher is to take our impressions—what we see, hear, and think—and put them to the test. He said we needed to hold up our thoughts and examine them, to make sure we weren’t being led astray by appearances or missing what couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. Indeed, it is in Stoicism and Buddhism and countless other schools that we find the same analogy: The world is like muddy water. To see through it, we have to let things settle. We can’t be disturbed by initial appearances, and if we are patient and still, the truth will be revealed to us.

There is, on the surface, a contradiction here. On the one hand, the Buddhists say we must empty our minds to be fully present. We’ll never get anything done if we are paralyzed by overthinking. On the other hand, we must look and think and study deeply if we are ever to truly know (and if we are to avoid falling into the destructive patterns that harm so many people). In fact, this is not a contradiction at all. It’s just life. We have to get better at thinking, deliberately and intentionally, about the big questions. On the complicated things. On understanding what’s really going on with a person, or a situation, or with life itself. We have to do the kind of thinking that 99 percent of the population is just not doing, and we have to stop doing the destructive thinking that they spend 99 percent of their time doing.

No one gets there by focusing on what’s obvious, or by sticking with the first thought that pops into their head. To see what matters, you really have to look. To understand it, you have to really think. It takes real work to grasp what is invisible to just about everyone else.

This will not only be advantageous to your career and your business, but it will also help you find peace and comfort. There is another great insight from Fred Rogers, which now goes viral each time there is another unspeakable tragedy. “Always look for the helpers,” he explained to his viewers who were scared or disillusioned by the news. “There’s always someone who is trying to help. . . . The world is full of doctors and nurses, police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.”

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.

If you invest the time and mental energy, you’ll not only find what’s interesting (or your next creative project), you’ll find truth. You’ll find what other people have missed. You’ll find solutions to the problems we face—whether it’s insight to the logic of the Soviets and their missiles in Cuba, or how to move your business forward, or how to make sense of senseless violence. These are answers that must be fished from the depths. And what is fishing but slowing down? Being both relaxed and highly attuned to your environment? And ultimately, catching hold of what lurks below the surface and reeling it in?

Start Journaling 

Review reflect renew 

Questuons and answera how can  can be better right wrong analysis 

It helps you in therapy counseling 

Self examination

it improves memory 

It prepares for next move 

It helps patients and Anne Frank to cope up difficult days 

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. 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? *

That’s really the idea. 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. Putting your own thinking down on paper lets you see it from a distance. It gives you objectivity that is so often missing when anxiety and fears and frustrations flood your mind.

Michel Foucault talked of the ancient genre of hupomnemata (notes to oneself). He called the journal a “weapon for spiritual combat,” a way to practice philosophy and purge the mind of agitation and foolishness and to overcome difficulty. To silence the barking dogs in your head. To prepare for the day ahead. To reflect on the day that has passed. Take note of insights you’ve heard. Take the time to feel wisdom flow through your fingertips and onto the page.

What’s the best way to start journaling? Is there an ideal time of day? How long should it take? Who cares? How you journal is much less important than why you are doing it: To get something off your chest. To have quiet time with your thoughts. To clarify those thoughts. To separate the harmful from the insightful. There’s no right way or wrong way. The point is just to do it. If you’ve started before and stopped, start again. Getting out of the rhythm happens. The key is to carve out the space again, today. The French painter Eugène Delacroix—who called Stoicism his consoling religion—struggled as we struggle: I am taking up my Journal again after a long break. I think it may be a way of calming this nervous excitement that has been worrying me for so long. Yes! That is what journaling is about. It’s spiritual windshield wipers, as the writer Julia Cameron once put it. It’s a few minutes of reflection that both demands and creates stillness. It’s a break from the world. A framework for the day ahead. A coping mechanism for troubles of the hours just past. A revving up of your creative juices, for relaxing and clearing. Once, twice, three times a day. Whatever. Find what works for you. Just know that it may turn out to be the most important thing you do all day.

Cultivate silence 

“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise,” he would say. “When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.”

In nasa chambers where world most sound proof room person can hear his own hearts voice 

Randall Stutman, who for decades has been the behind-thescenes advisor for many of the biggest CEOs and leaders on Wall Street, once studied how several hundred senior executives of major corporations recharged in their downtime. The answers were things like sailing, long-distance cycling, listening quietly to classical music, scuba diving, riding motorcycles, and fly-fishing. All these activities, he noticed, had one thing in common: an absence of voices.

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. In shutting up—even if only for a short period—we can finally hear what the world has been trying to tell us. Or what we’ve been trying to tell ourselves. That quiet is so rare is a sign of its value. Seize it. We can’t be afraid of silence, as it has much to teach us. Seek it. The ticking of the hands of your watch is telling you how time is passing away, never to return. Listen to it.

Seek wisdom 

I n Greece in 426 BC, the priestess of Delphi answered a question posed to her by a citizen of Athens: Was there anyone wiser than Socrates? Her answer: No. This idea that Socrates could be the wisest of them all was a surprise, to Socrates especially. Unlike traditionally wise people who knew many things, and unlike pretentious people who claimed to know many things, Socrates was intellectually humble. In fact, he spent most of his life sincerely proclaiming his lack of wisdom. Yet this was the secret to his brilliance, the reason he has stood apart for centuries as a model of wisdom. Six hundred years after Socrates’s death, Diogenes Laërtius would write that what made Socrates so wise was that “he knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance.” Better still, he was aware of what he did not know and was always willing to be proven wrong. Indeed, the core of what we now call the Socratic method comes from Socrates’s real and often annoying habit of going around asking questions. He was constantly probing other people’s views. Why do you think that? How do you know? What evidence do you have? But what about this or that?

Xunzi was more explicit: “Learning must never cease. . . . The noble person who studies widely and examines himself each day will become clear in his knowing and faultless in his conduct.” Each school has its own take on wisdom, but the same themes appear in all of them: The need to ask questions. The need to study and reflect. The importance of intellectual humility. The power of experiences—most of all failure and mistakes—to open our eyes to truth and understanding. In this way, wisdom is a sense of the big picture, the accumulation of experience and the ability to rise above the biases, the traps that catch lazier thinkers.

If Zeno and Buddha needed teachers to advance, then we will definitely need help. And the ability to admit that is evidence of not a small bit of wisdom! Find people you admire and ask how they got where they are. Seek book recommendations. Isn’t that what Socrates would do? Add experience and experimentation on top of this. Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. That’s how you widen your perspective and your understanding. 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. Wrestle with big questions. Wrestle with big ideas. Treat your brain like the muscle that it is. Get stronger through resistance and exposure and training. Do not mistake the pursuit of wisdom for an endless parade of sunshine and kittens. Wisdom does not immediately produce stillness or clarity. Quite the contrary. It might even make things less clear—make them darker before the dawn. 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. It’s also inevitable that the diligent student will uncover disconcerting or challenging ideas—about the world and about themselves. This will be unsettling. How could it not be? But that’s okay. It’s better than crashing through life (and into each other) like blind moles, to borrow Khrushchev’s analogy. We want to sit with doubt. We want to savor it. We want to follow it where it leads. Because on the other side is truth.

Find confidence avoid ego 

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

I n 1000 BC in the Valley of Elah, the people of Israel and Philistia were locked in terrible war. No end was in sight until the towering Goliath offered a bold challenge to end the stalemate between the armies. “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other,” he shouted. For forty days, not a single soldier stepped forward, not even the king of Israel, Saul. If Goliath was driven by ego and hubris, the Israelites were paralyzed by fear and doubt. Then came young David, a visiting shepherd with three brothers in the army. David heard Goliath’s challenge, and unlike the entire army, cowering in fear, he was confident that he could fight Goliath and win. Was he crazy? How could he possibly think he could beat someone so big? “When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,” David said to his brothers, “I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this Philistine will be like one of them.” David’s confidence arose from experience, not ego. He had been through worse and done it with his bare hands.

David knew his strengths, but he also knew his weaknesses. “I cannot go in these,” he said after trying on a soldier’s armor, “because I am not used to them.” He was ready to proceed with what we could call true self-awareness (and of course, his faith). How did Goliath respond to his tiny challenger? Like your typical bully: He laughed. “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” Goliath shouted. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” This arrogance would be short-lived. David came at Goliath at a full sprint, a sling in one hand and a few stones from the river in the other. In those few quick seconds, Goliath must have seen the confidence in David’s eyes and been afraid for the first time—and before he could do anything, he was dead. Felled by the stone flung expertly from David’s sling. His head cut off by his own sword. The story of these two combatants may be true. It may be a fable. But it remains one of the best stories we have about the perils of ego, the importance of humility, and the necessity of confidence. There is perhaps no one less at peace than the egomaniac, their mind a swirling miasma of their own grandiosity and insecurity. They constantly bite off more than they can chew. They pick fights everywhere they go. They create enemies. They are incapable of learning from their mistakes (because they don’t believe they make any). Everything with them is complicated, everything is about them. Life is lonely and painful for the man or woman driven by ego.

This toxic form of ego has a less-assuming evil twin—often called “imposter syndrome.” It’s a nagging, endless anxiety that you’re not qualified for what you’re doing—and you’re about to be found out for it. 

: “I am solving the problem of poverty.” That’s the answer of a confident person, a person at peace even in difficulty. Grant wouldn’t have chosen this situation, but he wasn’t going to let it affect his sense of self. Besides, he was too busy trying to fix it where he could. Why hate himself for working for a living? What was shameful about that? Observers often commented on Grant’s unshakable confidence in battle. When other generals were convinced that defeat was imminent, Grant never was. He knew he just needed to stay the course. He also knew that losing hope—or his cool—was unlikely to help anything.

This is also confidence. Which needs neither congratulations nor glory in which to revel, because it is an honest understanding of our strengths and weakness that reveals the path to a greater glory: inner peace and a clear mind. 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. But confident people are open, reflective, and able to see themselves without blinders. All this makes room for stillness, by removing unnecessary conflict and uncertainty and resentment. And you? Where are you on this spectrum?

There are going to be setbacks in life. Even a master or a genius will experience a period of inadequacy when they attempt to learn new skills or explore new domains. Confidence is what determines whether this will be a source of anguish or an enjoyable challenge. If you’re miserable every time things are not going your way, if you cannot enjoy it when things are going your way because you undermine it with doubts and insecurity, life will be hell. And sure, there is no such thing as full confidence, or everpresent confidence. We will waver. We will have doubts. We will find ourselves in new situations of complete uncertainty. But still, we want to look inside that chaos and find that kernel of calm confidence. That was what Kennedy did in the Cuban Missile Crisis. He had been in tough situations before, like when his PT boat sank in the Pacific and all appeared to be lost. He learned then that panic solved nothing, and that salvation rarely came from rash action. He also learned that he could count on himself and that he could get through it—if he kept his head. Whatever happened, he told himself early in the crisis, no one would write The Guns of October about his handling of it. That was something he could control, and so in that he found confidence. 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.

Let go

T he great archery master Awa Kenzo did not focus on teaching technical mastery of the bow. He spent almost no time instructing his students on how to deliberately aim and shoot, telling them to simply draw a shot back until it “fell from you like ripe fruit.” He preferred instead to teach his students an important mental skill: detachment. “What stands in your way,” Kenzo once told his student Eugen Herrigel, “is that you have too much willful will.” It was this willful will—the desire to be in control and to dictate the schedule and the process of everything we’re a part of—that held Herrigel back from learning, from really mastering the art he pursued. What Kenzo wanted students to do was to put the thought of hitting the target out of their minds. He wanted them to detach even from the idea of an outcome. “The hits on the target,” he would say, “are only the outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your selfabandonment, or whatever you like to call this state.” That state is stillness.

As marksmen say these days, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” 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. Obviously an archery master like Kenzo realized that by the early twentieth century the skills he was teaching were no longer matters of life and death. Nobody needed to know how to shoot an arrow for survival. But other skills required to master archery remained essential: focus, patience, breathing, persistence, clarity. And most of all, the ability to let go. What we need in life, in the arts, in sports, is to loosen up, to become flexible, to get to a place where there is nothing in our way— including our own obsession with certain outcomes. An actor doesn’t become his character by thinking about it; he has to let go, dispense with technique and sink into the role. Entrepreneurs don’t walk the streets deliberately looking for opportunities—they have to open themselves up to noticing the little things around them. The same goes for comedians or even parents trying to raise a good kid.

Everyone tries to shoot naturally,” Kenzo wrote, “but nearly all practitioners have some kind of strategy, some kind of shallow, artificial, calculating technical trick that they rely on when they shoot. Technical tricks ultimately lead nowhere.” 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. Most students, whether it’s i

In Kenzo’s school, it was only when a student had fully surrendered, when they had detached themselves from even the idea of aiming, having spent months firing arrows into a hay bale just a few feet in front of them, that he would finally announce, “Our new exercise is shooting at a target.” 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!” He wanted them to get lost in the process. He wanted them to give up their notions of what archery was supposed to look like. He was demanding that they be present and empty and open—so they could learn. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, the lotus flower is a powerful symbol. Although it rises out of the mud of a pond or a river, it doesn’t reach up towering into the sky—it floats freely, serenely on top of the water. It was said that wherever Buddha walked, lotus flowers appeared to mark his footprints. In a way, the lotus also embodies the principle of letting go. It’s beautiful and ure, but also attainable and lowly. It is simultaneously attached and detached. This is the balance we want to strike. If we aim for the trophy in life—be it recognition or wealth or power—we’ll miss the target. 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. What we should be doing is practicing. What we should be doing is pushing away that willful will. The closer we get to mastery, the less we care about specific results. The more collaborative and creative we are able to be, the less we will tolerate ego or insecurity. The more at peace we are, the more productive we can be. Only through stillness are the vexing problems solved. Only through reducing our aims are the most difficult targets within our reach.

On to what's next 

The premise of this book is that our three domains—the mind, the heart, and the body—must be in harmony. The truth is that for most people not only are these domains out of sync, but they are at war with each other. We will never have peace until that civil war Dr. King described is settled. History teaches us that peace is what provides the opportunity to build. It is the postwar boom that turns nations into superpowers, and ordinary people into powerhouses. And so we must go onward to fight the next battle, to pacify the domain of the spirit and purify our hearts, our emotions, our drives, our passions.

Part 2

Mind SOUL body 

the domain of the soul 

Tiger woods mental physical inhuman trained to be best performer golf 

But lost his soul relations sucess he has but not has humans character manners behaviour heart he don't have emotions feelings care for others 

Enough the word 

He materialized himself wealth and enjoyment of money and sucess just his life 

No gratitude thankfulness mercy grace for others 

so many of us, Tiger had unconsciously replicated the most painful and worst habits of his parents. Some have looked at those fruitless years after Tiger’s return to golf as evidence that the selfishness of his previous life helped his game. Or that somehow the work he did in rehab opened up wounds better left bound up. As if Tiger Woods, a human being, did not deserve happiness and existed solely to win trophies and entertain us on television. “For what is a man profited,” Jesus asked his disciples, “if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” It’s a question we must ask ourselves. Cheating and lying never helped anyone in the long run, whether it was done at work or at home. In Tiger’s case, it was that he was so talented, he could get away with it . . . until he couldn’t. Eventually one has to say the e-word, enough. Or the world says it for you. In one sense, his father’s training had succeeded. Tiger Woods was mentally tough. He was cold-blooded and talented. But in every other part of his life, he was weak and fragile—bankrupt and unbalanced. That stillness existed only on the golf course; everywhere else he was at the mercy of his passions and urges. As he worked to crowd out distractions—anything that would get in the way of his concentration addressing each shot—he was also crowding out so many other essential elements of life: An open heart. Meaningful relationships. Selflessness. Moderation. A sense of right and wrong. These are not just important elements of a balanced life; they are sources of stillness that allow us to endure defeat and enjoy victory. Mental stillness will be short-lived if our hearts are on fire, or our souls ache with emptiness. We are incapable of seeing what is essential in the world if we are blind to what’s going on within us. We cannot be in harmony with anyone or anything if the need for more, more, more is gnawing at our insides like a maggot. “When you live a life where you’re lying all the time, life is no fun,” Tiger would say later. When your life is out of balance, it’s not fun. When your life is solely and exclusively about yourself, it’s worse than not fun—it’s empty and awful. Tiger Woods wasn’t just a

We need to ask ourselves these questions, too, especially as we become successful. One of the best stories in Zen literature is a series of ten poems about a farmer and his trouble with a bull. The poems are an allegory about conquering the self, and the titles of each one map out the journey that each of us must go on: We search for the bull, we track the footprints, we find it, we catch it, we tame it, we ride it home. At first the beast is untamable, it’s wild and impossible to contain. But the message is that with struggle and perseverance, with selfawareness and patience—with enlightenment, really—

The narrator is in a state of serenity and peace. He has tamed his wild spirit. That’s what we’re trying to do. Since ancient times, people have strived to train and control the forces that reside deep inside them so

that they can find serenity, so that they can preserve and protect their accomplishments. What good is it to be rational at work if our personal lives are a hot-blooded series of disasters? How long can we keep the two domains separate anyway? You might rule cities or a great empire, but if you’re not in control of yourself, it is all for naught. The work we must do next is less cerebral and more spiritual. It’s work located in the heart and in the soul, and not in the mind. 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). That is why those who seek stillness must come to . . .

 Develop a strong moral compass. Steer clear of envy and jealousy and harmful desires.

 Come to terms with the painful wounds of their childhood.

 Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around them. 

Cultivate relationships and love in their lives. 

Place belief and control in the hands of something larger than themselves. Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy.

 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.

Choose virtue 

M arcus Aurelius famously described a number of what he called “epithets for the self.” Among his were: Upright. Modest. Straightforward. Sane. Cooperative. These were, then, the traits that served him well as emperor. There are many other traits that could be added to this list: Honest. Patient. Caring. Kind. Brave. Calm. Firm. Generous. Forgiving. Righteous. There is one word, however, under which all these epithets sit: virtue. Virtue, the Stoics believed, was the highest good—the summum bonum—and should be the principle behind all our actions. Virtue is not holiness, but rather moral and civic excellence in the course of daily life. It’s a sense of pure rightness that emerges from our souls and is made real through the actions we take.

English but is roughly understood as a person who emanates integrity, honor, and self-control. 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. Meanwhile, the person who knows what they value? Who has a strong sense of decency and principle and behaves accordingly? Who possesses easy moral self-command, who leans comfortably upon this goodness, day in and day out? This person has found stillness. A sort of soul power they can draw on when they face challenges, stress, even scary situations. Look at the response of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh to an angry protester during a campaign stop. When the agitated woman came up and started shouting at him about Islam (despite the fact that he is Sikh), he replied with two of his own epithets for the self: “Love and courage.” Soon, the crowd began to chant along with him: “Love and courage. Love and courage. Love and courage.” He could’ve stood there and yelled back. He could have run away. It could have made him cruel and mean, in the moment or forever after. He may well have been prodded in those directions. But instead he remained cool, and those two words helped him recenter in the midst of what not only was a career-on-the-line situation, but probably felt like a life-threatening one. Different situations naturally call for different virtues and different epithets for the self. When we’re going into a tough assignment, we can say to ourselves over and over again, “Strength and courage.” Before a tough conversation with a significant other: “Patience and kindness.” In times of corruption and evil: “Goodness and honesty.” 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. Which is why each of us needs to sit down and examine ourselves. What do we stand for? What do we believe to be essential and important? What are we really living for? Deep in the marrow of our bones, in the chambers of our heart, we know the answer. The problem is that the busyness of life, the realities of pursuing a career and surviving in the world, come between us and that selfknowledge. Confucius said that virtue is a kind of polestar. It not only provides guidance to the navigator, but it attracts fellow travelers too. Epicurus, who has been unfairly branded by history as a hedonist, knew that virtue was the way to tranquility and happiness. In fact, he believed that virtue and pleasure were two sides of the same coin. As he said: 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. Where virtue is, so too are happiness and beauty.

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.

ere’s no question it’s possible to get ahead in life by lying and cheating and generally being awful to other people. This may even be a quick way to the top. But it comes at the expense of not only your self-respect, but your security too. Virtue, on the other hand, as crazy as it might seem, is a far more attainable and sustainable way to succeed. How’s that? Recognition is dependent on other people. Getting rich requires business opportunities. You can be blocked from your goals by the weather just as easily as you can by a dictator. But virtue? No one can stop you from knowing what’s right. Nothing stands between you and it . . . but yourself. 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? These are not idle questions or the banal queries of a personality quiz. We must have the answers if we want the stillness (and the strength) that emerges from the citadel of our own virtue. It is for the difficult moments in life—the crossroads that Seneca found himself on when asked to serve Nero—that virtue can be called upon. 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.

Heal the inner child 

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. This should be a relief: The source of our anxiety and worry, the frustrations that seem to suddenly pop out in inappropriate situations, the reason we have trouble staying in relationships or ignoring criticism—it isn’t us. Well, it is us, just not adult us. It’s the seven-year-old living inside us. The one who was hurt by Mom and Dad, the sweet, innocent kid who wasn’t seen.

What happened? Just days before, his father and brother had gone to jail on drug charges and Rick had been in the courthouse to see them. He’d been running from that pain and that anger for years, until it finally exploded and shattered the delicate balance that pitching required. It took years of work with Harvey Dorfman, a brilliant, patient sports psychologist, to coax his gifts back. And even then only so far. Wolrd best pithcer Ankiel would pitch only five more times in his career, none as a starter. The rest of his career he spent in the outfield—mostly in center field, the position farthest away from the mound.

We carry a chip programmed on our shoulder by Sigmund Freud 

But with that realization came stillness, if only because it deintensified arguments at work. Think about it: How much better and less scary life is when we don’t have to see it from the perspective of a scared, vulnerable child? How much lighter will our load be if we’re not adding extra baggage on top? It will take patience and empathy and real self-love to heal the wounds in your life. As Thich Nhat Hanh has written: 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. Take the time to think about the pain you carry from your early experiences. Think about the “age” of the emotional reactions you

have when you are hurt or betrayed or unexpectedly challenged in some way. That’s your inner child. They need a hug from you. They need you to say, “Hey, buddy. It’s okay. I know you’re hurt, but I am going to take care of you.” The functional adult steps in to reassert and reassure. To make stillness possible. We owe it to ourselves as well as to the people in our lives to do this. Each of us must break the link in the chain of what the Buddhists call samsara, the continuation of life’s suffering from generation to generation.

 The formula was simple and is key to breaking the cycle and stilling the deep anguish we carry around with us: Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story. Try it, if you can.

Beware desire 

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

Lust is a destroyer of peace in our lives: Lust for a beautiful person. Lust for an orgasm. Lust for someone other than the one we’ve committed to be with. Lust for power. Lust for dominance. Lust for other people’s stuff. Lust for the fanciest, best, most expensive things that money can buy. 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. How many great men and women end up losing everything—end up, in some cases, literally behind bars—because they freely chose to 

indulge their endless appetites, whatever they happened to be? And at least power and sex and attention are pleasurable. The most common form of lust is envy—the lust for what other people have, for the sole reason that they have it. Joseph Epstein’s brilliant line is: “Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”

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). But if you had to trade places entirely with the person you envy, if you had to give up your brain, your principles, your proudest accomplishments to live in their life, would you do it? Are you willing to pay the price they paid to get what you covet? No, you aren’t. Epicurus, again the supposed hedonist, once said that “sex has never benefited any man, and it’s a marvel if it hasn’t injured him.” He came up with a good test anytime he felt himself being pulled by a strong desire: 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.

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita calls desire the “ever-present enemy of the wise . . . which like a fire cannot find satisfaction.”

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. We can also rely on tools to help us resist harmful desires.

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.

Enough 

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 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. In a way, this is a curse of one of our virtues. No one achieves excellence or enlightenment without a desire to get better, without a tendency to explore potential areas of improvement. Yet the desire— or the need—for more is often at odds with happiness. Billie Jean King, the tennis great, has spoken about this, about how the mentality that gets an athlete to the top so often prevents them from

enjoying the thing they worked so hard for. 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.

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. Accomplishment. Money. Fame. Respect. Piles and piles of them will never make a person feel content.

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. We were not put on this planet to be worker bees, compelled to perform some function over and over again for the cause of the hive until we die. Nor do we “owe it” to anyone to keep doing, doing, doing—not our fans, not our followers, not our parents who have provided so much for us, not even our families. Killing ourselves does nothing for anybody. It’s perfectly possible to do and make good work from a good place. You can be healthy and still and successful. Joseph Heller believed he had enough, but he still kept writing. He wrote six novels after Catch-22 (when a reporter criticized him by saying he hadn’t written anything as good as his first book, Heller replied, “Who has?”), including a number one bestseller. He taught. He wrote plays and movies. He was incredibly productive. John Stuart Mill, after his breakdown, fell in love with poetry, met the woman who would eventually become his wife, and began to slowly return to political philosophy—and ultimately had enormous impact on the world. Indeed, Western democracies are indebted to him for many changes he helped bring about.

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.

Bathe in beauty 

Enjoy nature feel the nature be stl in the moment with your self in nature its a therapy listen to the sound of nature what it tries to tell 

The Japanese have a concept, shinrin yoku— forest bathing—which is a form of therapy that uses nature as a treatment for mental and spiritual issues. Hardly a week passed, even when he was president, that Roosevelt didn’t take a forest bath of some kind.

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.

Accept a higher power 

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE F

There is science and evolution but there is also a higher power 

Who dictates runs universe which we don't know unconsciously 

Every one has different name and saying about it 

he Christians believe that God is that source of stillness in our lives, which extended peace and comfort to us like a river. “Peace! Be still!” Jesus said to the sea, “and the wind ceased and there was a great calm.”

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.

We have so little control of the world around us, so many inexplicable events created this world, that it works out almost exactly the same way as if there was a god. The point of this belief is in some ways to override the mind. To quiet it down by putting it in true perspective. The common language for accepting a higher power is about “letting [Him or Her or It] into your heart.” That’s it. This is about rejecting the tyranny of our intellect, of our immediate observational experience, and accepting something bigger, something beyond ourselves. Perhaps you’re not ready to do that, to let anything into your heart. That’s okay. There’s no rush. Just know that this step is open to you. It’s waiting. And it will help restore you to sanity when you’re ready.

Enter relationships 

God has made each for everyone in physical form to help survive communicate love explore have sense of completeness in thus human world 

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

Live alone strong enough have self reliant life is good but not its we made for it creates narcissism we don't know explore each other we just self centered egoistic people than become 

Emotions feelings need to feel with each other is a greates gift of God 

There is no one to appreciate love or recognize admit yours sucess achievements is your are not in a relationship 

They make you happy sucessf take cate of you when needed 

Support you compliment you 

Create sharing sense helping loving as ahuman we need someone who understand us stillness can't enjoy alone 

Without relation its meaning less 

Fyodor Dostoevsky once described his wife, Anna, as a rock on which he could lean and rest, a wall that would not let him fall and protected him from the cold. There is no better description of love, between spouses or friends or parent and child, than that. Love, Freud said, is the great educator. We learn when we give it. We learn when we get it. We get closer to stillness through it. Like all good education, it is not easy. Not easy at all. It’s been said that the word “love” is spelled T-I-M-E. It is also spelled W-O-R-K and S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E and D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T-Y, C-O-M-M-I-T-M-E-N-T, and occasionally M-A-D-N-E-S-S. But it is always punctuated by R-E-W-A-R-D. Even ones that end. The stillness of two people on a porch swing, the stillness of a hug, of a final letter, of a memory, a phone call before a plane crash, of paying it forward, of teaching, of learning, of being together. The notion that isolation, that total self-driven focus, will get you to a supreme state of enlightenment is not only incorrect, it misses the obvious: Who will even care that you did all that? Your house might be quieter without kids and it might be easier to work longer hours without someone waiting for you at the dinner table, but it is a hollow quiet and an empty ease. To go through our days looking out for no one but ourselves? To think that we can or must do this all alone? To accrue mastery or genius, wealth or power, solely for our own benefit? What is the point? 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.

Conquer your anger 

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

Michael Jordan in a speech  

The problem is that he delivered almost the exact opposite message. * Yes, he had shown that anger was powerful fuel. He had also shown just how likely it is to blow up all over yourself and the people around you.

was without a hint of self-awareness that Nixon—who hated Ivy Leaguers, hated reporters, hated Jews and so many other people— said these high-minded words to his loyal staffers in his last hours in the White House: “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” He was right. His own downfall proved it. The leaders we truly respect, who stand head and shoulders above the rest, have been motivated by more than anger or hate. From Pericles to Martin Luther King Jr., we find that great leaders

are fueled by love. Country. Compassion. Destiny. Reconciliation. Mastery. Idealism. Family.

Learn to control anger use wisely to take benefit of it in work feild it will make you or destroy you

Not that regret minimization is the point of managing our temper, although it is an important factor. The point is that people who are driven by anger are not happy. They are not still. They get in their own way. They shorten legacies and short-circuit their goals. The Buddhists believed that anger was a kind of tiger within us, one whose claws tear at the body that houses it. To have a chance at stillness—and the clear thinking and big-picture view that defines it —we need to tame that tiger before it kills us. We have to beware of desire, but conquer anger, because anger hurts not just ourselves but many other people as well. Although the Stoics are often criticized for their rigid rules and discipline, that is really what they are after: an inner dignity and propriety that protects them and their loved ones from dangerous passions.

Gita says purest emotion is anger or revenge 

Clearly, basketball was a refuge for Michael Jordan, a game he loved and that provided him much satisfaction. But in the pursuit of winning and domination, he also turned it into a kind of raw, open wound, one that seemed to never stop bleeding or cause pain. One that likely cost him additional years of winning, as well as the simple enjoyment of a special evening at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. That can’t be what you want. That can’t be who you want to be. Which is why we must choose to drive out anger and replace it with love and gratitude—and purpose. 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 is one 

We are a family interconnected interdependent to each other in this world universe 

Global consciousness 

Have compassion and empathy for each other 

Even to evils and bad peoples dont Hate them just be a human to them 

Change them forgive them love them 

One empacts all all empacts on one 

Universal 

One DNA 

One ecosystem 

Collective human being 

Peace is when we realize that victory and defeat are almost identical spots on one long spectrum. 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.

On to what's next 

Stillness isn’t merely an abstraction—something we only think about or feel. It’s also real. It’s in our bodies. Seneca warned us not to “suppose that the soul is at peace when the body is still.” Vice versa. Lao Tzu said that “movement is the foundation of stillness.” What follows then is the final domain of stillness. The literal form that our form takes in the course of day-to-day life. Our bodies (where, you must not forget, the heart and the brain are both located). The environment we put those bodies in. The habits and routines to which we subject that body. 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. Which is why we now move on to this final domain of stillness— the body—and its place in the real world. In real life.

Part 3

Mind souls BODY 

The domain of the body 

W inston Churchill had a productive life. He first saw combat at age twenty-one, and wrote his first bestselling book about it not long after. By twenty-six, he’d been elected to public office and would serve in government for the next six and half decades. He’d write some ten million words and over forty books, paint more than five hundred paintings, and give some twenty-three hundred speeches in the course of his time on this planet. In between all that, he managed to hold the positions of minister of defense, first lord of the admiralty, chancellor of the exchequer, and of course, prime minister of Britain, where he helped save the world from the Nazi menace. Then, to top it off, he spent his twilight years fighting the totalitarian communist menace.

on as a seventeen-year-old, decades before his own career as a writer, met Churchill on the street and shouted to him, “Sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?” Immediately

 Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. (Celibecy)Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” Churchill conserved his energy so that he never shirked from a task, or backed down from a challenge. So that, for all this work and pushing, he never burned himself out or snuffed out the spark of joy that made life worth living. (Indeed, in addition to the importance of hard work, Johnson said the other four lessons from Churchill’s remarkable life were to aim high; to never allow mistakes or criticism to get you down; to waste no energy on grudges, duplicity, or infighting; and to make room for joy.)

In addition to his impressive mental abilities and spiritual strength,

Build habits and routines disciplined to that that makes you build you create you fine you relaxed you put you ahead of rest have time management time schedule for daily 

we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

War room put out time for think relax to solution enters 

Which of these are we closer to in the modern world? Which of these is the path to happiness and stillness? No one can afford to neglect the final domain in our journey to stillness. What we do with our bodies. What we put in our bodies. Where we dwell. What kind of routine and schedule we keep. How we find leisure and relief from the pressures of life. 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. 

As they say, the body keeps score. 

If we don’t take care of ourselves physically, if we don’t align ourselves properly, it doesn’t matter how strong we are mentally or spiritually. 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.

Say no

Choose only what matters 

Say no to other things which your intuition is not witnessing ordering you to do it creates time and space for right thing to enter 

W —THE DAODEJING hen Fabius was dispatched to lead the Roman legions against Hannibal, he did nothing. He did not attack. He did not race out to drive the terrifying invader out of Italy and back to Africa. You might think this was a sign of weakness—certainly most of Rome did—but in fact, it was all part of Fabius’s strategy. Hannibal was far from home, he was losing men to the elements and could not easily replace them. Fabius believed that if Rome just held out and did not engage in any costly battles, they would win. But the mob couldn’t handle that kind of deliberate restraint. We’re the strongest army in the world, his critics said. We don’t sit around doing nothing when someone tries to attack us! So while Fabius was away attending a religious ceremony, they pressured his commander Minucius to attack. It did not go well. He ran straight into a trap. Fabius had to rush to his rescue. And even then, Minucius was hailed as a hero for doing something, while Fabius was labeled a coward for holding himself back. When his term ended, the Roman assemblies voted to abandon what is now known as a “Fabian strategy” of mostly avoiding battle and wearing Hannibal down, in favor of greater aggression and more action.

It didn’t work. Only after the bloodbath at the Battle of Cannae, in which the Romans attacked Hannibal and lost nearly their entire army in a horrific rout, did people finally begin to understand Fabius’s wisdom. Now they could see that what had looked like an excess of caution was in fact a brilliant method of warfare. He had been buying time and giving his opponent a chance to destroy himself. Only now—and not a moment too soon—were they ready to listen to him.

Many Rome emperors give Fabian title the delayer

What they have to learn, what the great hitter Sadaharu Oh himself learned in a series of complicated batting exercises designed by his Zen master and hitting coach, Hiroshi Arakawa, was the power of waiting, the power of precision, the power of the void. Because that’s what makes for a real pro. A truly great hitter—not just a

Wu wei is the ability to hold the bat back—waiting until the batter sees the perfect pitch. It is the yogi in meditation. They’re physically still, so that they can be active on a mental and spiritual level.

You don’t solve a maze by rushing through. You have to stop and think. You have to walk slowly and carefully, reining in your energy— otherwise you’ll get hopelessly lost. The same is true for the problems we face in life.

est and most lasting work comes from when we take things slow. When we pick our shots and wait for the right pitches. 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.

We should look fearfully, even sympathetically, at the people who have become slaves to their calendars, who require a staff of ten to handle all their ongoing projects, whose lives seem to resemble a fugitive fleeing one scene for the next. There is no stillness there. It’s servitude.

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.” Maybe it’s not the most virtuous thing to say “No, sorry, I can’t” when you really can but just don’t want to. But can you really? Can you really afford to do it? And does it not harm other people if you’re constantly stretched too thin?

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.

Take a walk

Walk to relax calm frustrations anger stress 

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

 Nikola Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, on a walk through a city park in Budapest in 1882. When he lived in Paris, Ernest Hemingway would take long walks along the quais whenever he was stuck in his writing and needed to clarify his thinking. 

How does walking get us closer to stillness? Isn’t the whole point of what we’re talking about to reduce activity, not seek it out? Yes, we are in motion when we walk, but it is not frenzied motion or even conscious motion—it is repetitive, ritualized motion. It is deliberate. It is an exercise in peace. The Buddhists talk of “walking meditation,” or kinhin, where the movement after a long session of sitting, particularly movement through a beautiful setting, can unlock a different kind of stillness than traditional meditation. Indeed, forest bathing—and most natural beauty—can only be accomplished by getting out of your house or office or car and trekking out into the woods on foot. The key to a good walk is to be aware. To be present and open to the experience. Put your phone away. Put the pressing problems of your life away, or rather let them melt away as you move. Look down at your feet. What are they doing? Notice how effortlessly they move. Is it you who’s doing that? Or do they just sort of move on their own? Listen to the sound of the leaves crunching underfoot. Feel the ground pushing back against you. Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider who might have walked this very spot in the centuries before you. Consider the person who paved the asphalt you are standing on. What was going on with them?

Get lost. Be unreachable. Go slowly. It’s an affordable luxury available to us all. Even the poorest pauper can go for a nice walk—in a national park or an empty parking lot.

This isn’t about burning calories or getting your heart rate up. On the contrary, it’s not about anything. It is instead just a manifestation, an embodiment of the concepts of presence, of detachment, of emptying the mind, of noticing and appreciating the beauty of the world around you. Walk away from the thoughts that need to be walked away from; walk toward the ones that have now appeared. On a good walk, the mind is not completely blank. It can’t be— otherwise you might trip over a root or get hit by a car or a bicyclist. The point is not, as in traditional meditation, to push every thought or observation from your mind. On the contrary, the whole point is to see what’s around you. The mind might be active while you do this, but it is still. It’s a different kind of thinking, a healthier kind if you do it right. 

A study at New Mexico Highlands University has found that the force from our footsteps can increase the supply of blood to the brain. Researchers at Stanford have found that walkers perform better on tests that measure “creative divergent thinking” during and after their walks

In our own search for beauty and what is good in life, we would do well to head outside and wander around. In an attempt to unlock a deeper part of our consciousness and access a high level of our mind, we would do well to get our body moving and our blood flowing. Stress and difficulty can knock us down. Sitting at our computers, we are overwhelmed with information, with emails, with one thing after another. Should we just sit there and absorb it? Should we sit there with the sickness and let it fester? No. Should we get up and throw ourselves into some other project—constructive, like cleaning, or cathartic, like picking a fight? No. We shouldn’t do any of that. We should get walking. Kierkegaard tells the story of a morning when he was driven from his house in a state of despair and frustration—illness, in his words. After an hour and a half, he was finally at peace and nearly back home when he bumped into a friendly gentleman who chattered on about a number of his problems. Isn’t that how it always seems to go? No matter. “There was only one thing left for me to do,” Kierkegaard wrote, “instead of going home, to go walking again.” And so must we. Walk. Then walk some more.

Build a routine 

Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual—it becomes sanctified and holy.

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. It’s also how we get in the right headspace to do our work

A routine can be time-based

A routine can be focused on order or arrangement. 

Routine can be built around a tool or a sound or a scent. 

Monks are called to meditation by the chiming of a monastery bell;

A routine can also be religious or faith-based.

The purpose of ritual isn’t to win the gods over to our side (though that can’t hurt!). It’s to settle our bodies (and our minds) down when Fortune is our opponent on the other side of the net.

When we not only automate and routinize the trivial parts of life, but also make automatic good and virtuous decisions, we free up resources to do important and meaningful exploration. We buy room for peace and stillness, and thus make good work and good thoughts accessible and inevitable. 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. If you can do this, passion and disturbance will give you less trouble. Because it will find itself boxed out. For inspiration, take as your model Japanese flower arrangers: Orderly. Quiet. Focused. Clean. Fresh. Deliberate. You will not find them trying to practice in noisy coffee shops or bleary-eyed in a rush at 3 a.m. because they planned poorly. You will not find them picking up their trimmers on a whim, or in their underwear while they talk on the phone to an old friend who has just called. All of that is too random, too chaotic for the true master. A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred. And so must we.

Get rid of your stuff 

Minimalistic minimalism 

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

. Xunzi explained: The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things.

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

We don’t need to get rid of all our possessions, but we should constantly question what we own, why we own it, and whether we could do without.

ohn Boyd, a sort of warrior-monk who revolutionized Western military strategy in the latter half of the twentieth century, refused to take checks from defense contractors and deliberately lived in a small condo even as he advised presidents and generals. “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.”

It’s also dangerous. The person who is afraid to lose their stuff, who has their identity wrapped up in their things, gives their enemies an opening. They make themselves extra vulnerable to fate. The playwright Tennessee Williams spoke of luxury as the “wolf at the door.” It wasn’t the possessions that were the problem, he said, but the dependency. He called it the catastrophe of success, the way that we become less and less able to do things ourselves, the more and more we cannot be without a certain level of service. Not only is all your stuff a mess, but you need to pay someone to come clean it up.

 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.

Which is why philosophers have always advocated reducing our needs and limiting our possessions. Monks and priests take vows of poverty because it will mean fewer distractions, and more room (literally) for the spiritual pursuit to which they have committed. No one is saying we have to go that far, but the more we own, the more we oversee, the less room we have to move and, ironically, the less still we become. Start by walking around your house and filling up trash bags and boxes with everything you don’t use. Think of it as clearing more room for your mind and your body. Give yourself space. Give your mind a rest. Want to have less to be mad about? Less to covet or be triggered by? Give more away.

. The best house for you is the one that feels the most like home. Don’t use your money to purchase loneliness, or headaches, or status anxiety.

The memory is what’s important. The experience itself is what matters. You can access that anytime you want, and no thief can ever deprive you of it. You will hear people say they don’t have room for a relationship in their life . . . and they’re right. Their stuff is taking up too much space. They’re in love with possessions instead of people. The family who never see each other because the two parents are working late to pay off the extra bedrooms they never use? The fame that keeps someone on the road so much they’re a stranger to their kids? The supposed “technology” that is a pain in the ass to figure out, that’s always breaking? The fragile, fancy possessions that we’re constantly cleaning, buffing, protecting, and trying to find ways to slyly mention in conversation?

This is not a rich life. There is no peace in this. Take action. Get out from under all your stuff. Get rid of it. Give away what you don’t need. 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.

Seek solitude 

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

Even in busy noise environments you can 

It is difficult to think clearly in rooms filled with other people. It’s difficult to understand yourself if you are never by yourself. It’s difficult to have much in the way of clarity and insight if your life is a constant party and your home is a construction site. Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love.

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.” People don’t have enough silence in their lives because they don’t have enough solitude. And they don’t get enough solitude because they don’t seek out or cultivate silence. It’s a vicious cycle that prevents stillness and reflection, and then stymies good ideas, which are almost always hatched in solitude. Breakthroughs seem to happen with stunning regularity in the shower or on a long hike. Where don’t they happen? Shouting to be heard in a bar. Three hours into a television binge. Nobody realizes

In a more emulatable form of Merton’s retreat, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has, twice a year for many years now, taken what he calls a “think week.” He spends seven days alone in a cabin in the forest. There, physically removing himself from the daily interruptions of his work, he can really sit down and think. He might be alone there, but he is hardly lonely. Gates reads— sometimes hundreds of papers—quietly for hours at a time, sometimes in print, sometimes off computer monitors that look out over the water. He reads books too, in a library adorned with a portrait of the author Victor Hugo. He writes long memos to people across his organization. The only breaks he takes are a few minutes to play bridge or go for a walk. In those solitary days in that cabin, Gates is the picture of Thomas à Kempis’s line In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro—“Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.” Do not mistake this for some kind of vacation. It is hard work— long days, some without sleep. It is wrestling with complex topics, contradictory ideas, and identity-challenging concepts. But despite this struggle, Gates emerges recharged and refocused. He can see further into the distance. He knows what he wants to prioritize, what to assign his people to work on. He carries the quiet stillness of the woods back to the complicated world he has to navigate as a businessman and philanthropic leader. Each of us needs to put ourselves, physically, in the position to do that kind of deep work. We need to give our bodies, as Virginia Woolf put it, a room of our own—even if only for a few stolen hours—where we can think and have quiet and solitude. Buddha needed seclusion in his search for enlightenment. He had to step away from the world, go off by himself, and sit. Don’t you think you would benefit from that too? It’s hard to make that time. It’s hard (and expensive) to get away. We have responsibilities. But they will be better for our temporary disappearance. We will carry back with us the stillness from our solitude in the form of patience, understanding, gratitude, and insight.

Merton eventually came to understand that after so much time by himself in the woods, he now possessed solitude inside himself—and could access it anytime he liked. The wise and busy also learn that solitude and stillness are there in pockets, if we look for them. The few minutes before going onstage for a talk or sitting in your hotel room before a meeting. The morning before the rest of the house wakes up. Or late in the evening after the world has gone to sleep. Grab these moments. Schedule them. Cultivate them.

Be a human being 

We are not a machine 

Yo may love being workaholics but at what cost health loss 

Is that what you want to be? A workhorse that draws its load until it collapses and dies, still shod and in the harness? Is that what you were put on this planet for? It will defeat you exhuast you drain you 

Don't over work only needed 

Balance the personal and professional life enjoy other times of life too with your loved ones and with yourself too 

The time same you don't get next day its only now so use most of iT wisely 

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 a vicious cycle: We end up having to work more to fix the errors we made when we would have been better off resting, having consciously said no instead of reflexively saying yes. We end up pushing good people away (and losing relationships) because we’re wound so tight and have so little patience.

The email you think you need so desperately to respond to can wait. Your screenplay does not need to be hurried, and you can even take a break between it and the next one. The only person truly requiring you to spend the night at the office is yourself. It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to opt out of that phone call or that last-minute trip.

Be carefull 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.

Go to sleep

It was this extreme, cumulative sleep deprivation that was the root of so much of the company’s catastrophic failure. How could it not be? Research has shown that as we approach twenty or so hours without sleep, we are as cognitively impaired as a drunk person. Our brains respond more slowly and our judgment is significantly impaired.

Many big companies faced loss due to unhealthy sleep of his employees 

If we treat sleep as a luxury, it is the first to go when we get busy. If sleep is what happens only when everything is done, work and others will constantly be impinging on your personal space.  To get good sleep is your right basically 

It will linked to productivity 

That’s not success. It’s torture. And no human can endure it for long. 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.

A 2017 study actually found that lack of sleep increases negative repetitive thinking. Abusing the body leads the mind to abuse itself. Sleep is the other side of the work we’re doing—sleep is the recharging of the internal batteries whose energy stores we recruit in order to do our work. It is a meditative practice. It is stillness. It’s the time when we turn off. It’s built into our biology for a reason. We have only so much energy for our work, for our relationships, for ourselves. A smart person understands this and guards it carefully. The greats—they protect their sleep because it’s where the best state of mind comes from. They say no to things. They turn in when they hit their limits. They don’t let the creep of sleep deprivation undermine their judgment. They know there are some people who can function without sleep, but they are also smart and self-aware enough to know that everyone functions better when wellrested.

 According to Ericsson, great players nap more than lesser ones.

It was all there. It was brilliant. It was the product of a rested mind that took care of its body. A healthy soul that could sleep soundly. And it has echoed down through the ages. 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.

Find a hobby 

It may be creative and destructive choose right for you 

This is the main question, with what activity one’s leisure is filled. —ARISTOTLE W illiam Gladstone, the four-time prime minister of England, in the generation before Winston Churchill, had an unusual hobby. He loved going out into the woods near his home and chopping down trees. Huge trees. By hand.

t was said that he found the process so consuming, he had no time to think of anything but where the next stroke of his axe would fall.

When most of us hear the word “leisure,” we think of lounging around and doing nothing.

It’s a physical state—a physical action —that somehow replenishes and strengthens the soul. 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. You have to do it for you. But the good news is that leisure can be anything.

The point isn’t to simply fill the hours or distract the mind. Rather, it’s to engage a pursuit that simultaneously challenges and relaxes us.

 Our bodies are busy, but our minds are open. Our hearts too.

Of course, leisure can easily become an escape, but the second that happens it’s not leisure anymore. When we take something relaxing and turn it into a compulsion, it’s not leisure, because we’re no longer choosing it. There is no stillness in that. While we don’t want our leisure to become work, we do have to work to make time for them

At leisure, we are with ourselves. We are present. It’s us an

We must be disciplined about our discipline and moderate in our moderation.

—but we’re afraid to risk even one minute of time for leisure.

Leisure is also a reward for the work we do.

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.

Beware of escapism 

It wasn’t restoration that Fante was chasing, nor was it leisure, it was escape from real life.

That’s the difference between leisure and escapism. It’s the intention.

The problem is that 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.

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.

 Those who think they will find solutions to all their problems by traveling far from home, 

You have to be still enough to discover what’s really going on. You have to let the muddy water settle. 

get away from it all.” We just need to look within. “Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions,” he said, “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. “A quick visit should be enough to ward off all,” Marcus wrote, “and send you back ready to face what awaits you.” Tuning out accomplishes nothing. Tune in.

If true peace and clarity are what you seek in this life—and by the way, they are what you deserve—know that you will find them nearby and not far away. Stick fast, as Emerson said. Turn into yourself. Stand in place. 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.

Act bravely 

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.

Anne had spoken often of risk—saying that it was impossible to live life without risk and that in fact, life is risk

What is better 

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?

Stillness is not an excuse to withdraw from the affairs of the world. Quite the opposite—it’s a tool to let you do more good for more people.

e “Be natural” was the same as “Do the right thing.” For Aristotle, virtue wasn’t just something contained in the soul—it was how we lived. It was what we did. He called it eudaimonia: human flourishing. A person who makes selfish choices or acts contrary to their conscience will never be at peace

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.

We are doing it to live better and be better. Every person we meet and every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity to prove that.

, Scouts are taught, like a thoughtful gesture, mowing a neighbor’s lawn, calling 911 when you see something amiss, holding open a door, making friends with a new kid at school. It’s the brave who do these things. It’s the people who do these things who make the world worth living in. Marcus Aurelius spoke of moving from one unselfish action to another—“only there,” he said, can we find “delight and stillness.” In the Bible, Matthew 5:6 says that those who do right will be made full god

Action is what matters.

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.

It will be scary. It won’t always be easy, but know that what is on the other side of goodness is true stillness. Think of Dorothy Day, and indeed, many other less famous Catholic nuns, who worked themselves to the bone helping other people. While they may have lacked for physical possessions and wealth, they found great comfort in seeing the shelters they had provided, and the self-respect they’d restored for people whom society had cast aside

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. Will we fall short of our own standards? Yes. When this happens, we don’t need to whip ourselves,

Not because good deeds can undo the past, but because they help get us out of our heads, and in the process, help us write the script for a better future. 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.

On to the final act 

Three approaches. Different, but in the end the same.

 Clear. Calm. Kind. Still.

 Each of the domains we have studied addressed in their own way.

 The mind. The soul. The body. 

The mental. The spiritual. The physical. 

Three legs in a stool. 

Three points along a perfect circle.