Restless

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. -Blaise Pascal

We are ever moving, ever planning.  We are a people consumed by activity and poking – either messaging in some technologically enabled manner or being messaged. The barrage is endless.

Recently, the call to unplug has taken some interesting turns. Games whose directions start with “everyone turn off their phones”. The Japanese phenomenon of “forest bathing”. “Please turn your phone to silent.”

O’Donohue, in his book “Anam Cara”, avers  “Time  and again, we miss out on the great treasures in our lives because we are so restless.” The sunsets, the falling leaves, the turtle invisible in the undergrowth.

Growing up in very rural Wyoming, I was taught through cautions and by example to pay attention to what was around me. Years later in a self-defense class, I was admonished to be aware of my surroundings. Both were in the context of staying alive.

Perhaps the greatest treasures in our lives, the things that keep us truly alive, require us to be able to sit in a quiet room alone.  Require us to still our restlessness, to breathe, to listen, to look up.

What did you almost miss today?