Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

(Barry) #1

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 bull in Robert Earl Keen’s “Front Porch Song” whose “work is
never done”? Do you want to be the artist who loses their joy for the
process, who has strip-mined their soul in such a way that there is
nothing left to draw upon? Burn out or fade away—that was the
question in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. How is that even a dilemma?
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.

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