Returning Is Also a Journey

“What’s harder than the climb?

Coming back down.”

Some things take a really long time.

Flights, the road from the airport to the hotel, another flight. Even though it usually takes less than two days to reach a place, time stretches in a way that’s hard to put into words.

But once there’s a final return — you drop your bags at home, fall into bed exhausted — another journey begins.

You come back to a life that’s running at the same tempo, where similar things are happening — but you don’t see them the same way anymore.

It’s much easier to be present when there are a few thousand meters to climb and you’re surrounded by scenery from a National Geographic magazine. It’s like eating with your eyes.

Day-to-day life offers more familiar views: the same road to work, the same road for groceries. Habits rule and set the direction.

You already know what’s going to happen most days on the road from point A to point B.

Maybe there’ll be an old friend along the way. A little catch-up. But we all live in our own little worlds.

Things That Are Alive

Standing in line at a supermarket, your mind drifts. Maybe to a conversation you had earlier — with a friend, a guest, or a stranger on the street. It wasn’t dramatic or life-changing, but something about it stayed. It felt alive.

This is it. This is what matters.

Situations are like songs. They play in the background — the same stories, the same emotions behind them. Sometimes quiet. Sometimes loud.

They’re asking to be heard, to be understood, to be processed, to be laid out.

They are stories to be listened to and played along with — and it’s up to you how you choose to participate with others.

Will you play along with others

Or try to stay in your head?

Peace Is Attracting

It’s hard to stay at peace when hurricanes of emotion are running through us. We need to be in the moment — to experience it, not just go through it in survival mode.

Like in Harry Potter, when they could pull a memory out of their head with a wand and look through it.

Sometimes memories are just too heavy to carry. It would be great to have a “mind-sieve”

Until we get that wand, all we can do is listen better — to others and to ourselves.

I do my best not to let the things that are alive in me interrupt my interactions with others. I try to stay present. To be behind my own eyes. To talk to someone and really listen — instead of just saying whatever pops into my head.

It’s not the tired kind of peace. It’s the kind connected to presence. A calming peace.

The mind begins to quiet too — and starts to hear more.

Of what is outside, not only inside.