The Art of Just Being

Silence is a source of great strength

- Lao Tzu

Do you have a life mission? Do you want to re-write your current life story and replace it with a new, more positive one?

These lofty ambitions were considered on our corporate retreat last week. My first reaction was that my life story is just fine thank you! But then as the hours wear on and you start to focus on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of this personal story, the cracks begin to appear on at least one level.

It can become quite overwhelming when you suddenly realize that maybe you don't have a life mission and then you start questioning if that means you don't have a life purpose? And how do you find one? After four intense days of being given the tools to be the "best person you can be,"  it was confronting to sit there and think that maybe I was a lesser person because I couldn't think what my mission is. I guess that is the existential crisis that every philosopher goes through 24/7 !

So after a week of movement and action and constant striving to be a better person and all-American corporate "rah rah-ing", I decided to just 'be' for a day. On Sunday, I walked from my apartment across the street into an oasis of calm that I have lived beside for the past five years and never entered. I chose the lovely empty seat you see above and took a couple of hours to - literally - smell the roses. I wandered the brick paths, visited the goldfish, sat under a tree and listened to the world carry on around me.

I do think it's important to continue to grow as a person, but I also think it's important to take time out and enjoy who you are now. Even thought it wasn't silent around me - it's Manhattan for heaven's sake - it was nice to be silent in my head for a moment. I think I will start growing again tomorrow.