Unless we take the time to slow down, smell the flowers, take the scenic route, notice the beauty all around us… how will we have the space to think, reflect, act?

“In Seneca’s time, to reach stillness meant contending with the cacophony of disturbances that filled the streets of Rome: carriages rumbling through the stone streets, carpenters at work, vendors shouting their offerings, children at play, dogs barking. Today, we can add to that car horns, cell phone alarms and notifications, stereos or headphones, jackhammers, espresso machines, airplanes. The news with its narrative of crisis after crisis finds us on whichever device we happen to be staring at. Emails bombard us. Requests and obligations pour in. We’re completely overstimulated, overscheduled, and overwhelmed.”

“History proves that it is from stillness that new insights and ideas spawn. It is with stillness that perspective sharpens. It is by stillness that the ball slows down so that we might hit it. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks genius, happiness, meaning.”

Ryan Holiday in The Daily Stoic