It’s time to become more contemplative

Tomorrow morning, most will wake up, sigh, get dressed, eat breakfast then go to work. For decades this was my life too. I was busy doing, but rarely stopped to wonder where I was heading. Of course I enjoyed the successes that came from time to time, and the income usefully paid the bills, but I kept running on the wheel long after I could have stepped off because I was afraid of what a change of direction might really be like.

Now I am running on a different wheel, and established as a non-fiction author. But as I reflect on that transition, I realise that I have brought with me too many behaviours and anxieties from my old life. As Erich Fromm would describe it, I am too busy doing and not making time for being.

So tomorrow, when others put aside what's left of their Easter eggs and go to work, I'm going to try to avoid stepping onto the treadmill, and focus on developing a more contemplative, thoughtful existence. That will help me as I prepare my next book for publication, then later become insightful and self aware enough to embark on my next literary adventure.

This will inevitably mean becoming slower to answer emails, and I will as often as not, ignore the phone if it rings. It's time to turn the page and begin the next chapter of my life.