To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.

Some of us
need to discover
that we will not begin
to live
more fully
until we have the
courage to do and see
and taste and experience
much less than usual….
There are times
when in order to keep
ourselves in existence at
all we simply have to sit
back for a while and
do nothing. And for a person
who has let themself be
drawn completely out of
themselves by their activity,
nothing is more difficult
than to sit still and rest,
doing nothing at all.
The very act of resting is
the hardest and most
courageous act a person can
perform.   –  Thomas Merton