Waking up at 4:19 in the morning, wide awake, has a few up sides…more down sides though…it’s a great time for cleaning, thinking and reading. All of which I did.
I had begun Mitch Albom’s book, Have a Little Faith, some time ago, and actually forgot I hadn’t finished it. Reading in the dim light, on a morning so still I wondered if it had begun, I came to a passage that captured my soul. “When the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same thing: comfort, love and a peaceful heart.”
I was so convicted, I left the warmth of my blanket, crossed the cold tile floor to find a pen. As I transfered the passage, my mind wandered. How long had it been since I had allowed the world to quite to the sound of my breathing? It can be a lonely place. Sometimes too real, too close, too hard to go to a place so honest it’s hard to look at yourself. Because if you do, you may just find that all the effort, all the daily pursuit of happiness, has brought you no closer to comfort, love or a peaceful heart. In fact, it merely distracts you from the void created by a misconception of want.
I began to wonder if I was working towards or away from comfort and love…if I was creating an environment that could give my heart peace. I didn’t come up with an answer, but I did come up with a plan. I will quite the noise of the world each day to look at my progress and create a path toward a future of happiness rather than one that travels circles around a past.