It’s easy to find yourself getting lost in the chaos of the everyday. It feels like there’s always something to do and somewhere you’re late to be and before you know it your entire month is gone and it feels like you’ve gotten nothing out of it. The more I speak with my friends and family the more it seems like so many of us have hit a rut in our lives that we feel there is no way out of. Henry David Thoreau also hit such a point in his life where he had finally had it with the rat race and left to live in the woods. Whereas that may not be the easiest thing to do in our 21st century lives, we can look to the conclusions his time in nature brought him to and, perhaps, gain the confidence to live more deliberately ourselves.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
Go on a walk today; as far or short as you need it to be and once done, write about everything on your mind. It can be dramatic or simple - let your consciousness stream through your pen.
