"The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm, to let each wave of life was us a little farther up the shore."
― Cyril Connolly
One of my favorite ideas is from Sylvia Boorstein, a
teacher of Buddhist mindfulness, who says that it is important to breathe to
calm our bodies, so that our minds can calm down, and that enables us to have clarity,
which leads us to see choices, and gives us hope and courage.
But sometimes, it is hard to do that on our
own.
As I rushed to the airport yesterday, worried about
missing my flight and not making it home for my daughter's birthday, I called a
friend from the cab. I needed her to
help me with a birthday-related surprise.
She was definitely the person for the job. When she was told that the order I wanted to
place needed to be done with 48 hours' notice as opposed to the 24 hours I had
been told, she simply replied "ridiculous!" and proceeded to get it
done. Her helping me with that is
certainly kindness enough. But the
greater gift that she gave me was that as I was panicking about not getting
home, she told me not to worry that there were plenty of flights from where I
was to our city. She said she knew
because she had flown from there before.
I believed her and calmed down.
Sometimes, we need the kindness of our friends to help us
out of panic and into calm.
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