If you are like most people, you're probably having a very busy day. Modern life comes with a laundry list of daily tasks and deadlines across many areas of our lives. Work, family, events, household responsibilities and other activities. This, combined with all the information coming at us through our devices, makes for a pretty noisy existence. It also leads to an outsized emphasis on external things. So where can we find time for an inner life which serves as the foundation of who we are?
Let's face it, much of our time and resources are put towards external goals. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. We all need to work to meet our basic needs. And beyond that, aspiring towards bigger goals can be joyful. Yet, if our sense of identity is completely tied to external goals, we can quickly feel empty after the initial high that comes of achievement. Or a sense of despair can set in if don't achieve our goals. We get trapped in restlessness, always looking for that next success that might finally give us lasting contentment.
There may be many reasons for this restlessness. Maybe we have internalized other people's definition of success, so our goals don't feel innately fulfilling. Or perhaps we have never gone below the surface of our lives to find our inner voice, to question what we value, and let those values guide our notions of success and failure. This kind of self-inquiry takes time, patience and some tolerance for discomfort. Self-reflection often forces us to confront difficult emotions or wade through a swamp of confusing thoughts. Who wants to deal with that? It's easier to just keep busy with our daily lives.
But befriending our minds and learning how to stay above the noise in the world, is well worth the time and effort. Creating space for an inner life can look different for each of us. It may mean taking much needed time off for contemplation. Or it might mean building daily practices like meditation, journaling, or walking to develop greater self-awareness. If we are in a particularly busy phase of life or dealing with difficult circumstances - say as an overloaded student, a parent of young children, or working multiple jobs to make ends meet - we might only have a few minutes of quiet in the morning or evening, maybe over a cup of tea, to find ourselves amidst the demands of life.
Whatever our life situation, even a small amount of time spent pausing can pay dividends over time. Slowly but surely, these snippets of stillness can help us dust off our inner compass that has always been with us, allowing us to move through life with greater clarity. As much as possible we can try to shape our life choices based on this compass. There will always be circumstances where we have to take on commitments that we might not want to. In such situations, we do what we must, using our inner strength to stay as centered as possible. But all the while keeping ourselves open to opportunities that ultimately take us in the direction we want to go.
Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn sees this inner development as our main task in life, calling it the hardest work in the world. But he says that we can use our daily lives as the curriculum to develop self-awareness, because it is the work of a lifetime and is never really done.
So, as you go through this week, I hope you can occasionally pause and check in with yourself in whatever way works for you. And remember that these small pauses are not a waste of time but an investment in our own inner wisdom so we can navigate more skillfully and peacefully through each day.
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