Solitude to Live Tirelessly

In our busy lives, we tend to be consumed with things to do and as a result, we are often tired, stressed, or fatigued. Vacations or get-away trips are meant to rejuvenate us, but many times we feel like we are back to square one. Everyone seems to have a remedy for stress but are we attacking the right problem or are we simply trying to escape and hide from the real issue?

It is common to hear people say, "If only I didn't have so many things to do" or "If I just didn't have to do this". But if that were really true, we should just take away those things and sit down without doing anything. Somehow, that option doesn't seem to be as appealing. What would we do if we didn't have to do anything? Sure, we can list our favorites, but pretty soon we'd be tired of those activities and would want to distract ourselves with different activities. This "want" to do different things eventually becomes a need, which leads to expectations, and then tension and conflict. For instance, we take a vacation for a change of pace but after a while, we start to have expectations of our vacations and in turn, we become uneasy if the outcome isn't per our liking. After such unsatisfactory actions, we become tired or stressed. While taking a "break" may provide temporary relief, the root problem of this need for change has to be attacked in order to gain a lasting peace.

To find this stable peace, we must diminish our dependence on external activities. In solitude, we see ourselves void of all influences; spending such time regularly creates a gateway of insight into onself, exposes the habit patterns of the mind, and gradually empowers a transformation for living tirelessly for one moment to another.