Being awake—knowing who you are—and paying attention to what is going on both inside and outside of you, is close to what the Eastern spiritual traditions call mindfulness. It involves being very present to this moment, to what you are now doing, to this feeling, and to this person in front of you. It is what newspaper columnist Adair Lara means when she relays the story of what her mother wanted on her birthday, “presence not presents.” It is noticing the tone of someone's voice and their body language, as well as noticing those things in yourself. It is seeing the many things that occur in your day and quickly establishing whether they are important or trivial. It is tuning in to other people and yourself. Being awake is a very in-the-moment act; an act of right now. It is the opposite of being distracted and unfocused.
Stopping brings you awake and aware of the present moment. But it also helps you bring together the threads of your history, of your stories. It helps you to remember who you are, where you come from, where you are going, and where you want to go; to remember your original goals, ideals, and dreams; and to remember why you started doing what you do so that you can see if that's still what you want to do. Even if you have no clear answers for many of the big questions of life, it is vital to continue to remember what your questions are. Losing your questions is truly losing your way.
Stopping is also remembering in a more literal sense: remembering. That is, to collect again all the parts of you that have been left behind or scattered about in your hurry and to get all your “members” back again into a cohesive whole. The poet Robert Bly speaks of the “bag we drag behind us” as full of those parts that we have lost the use of—our innocence, our spontaneity, or our playfulness. Stopping is reclaiming those parts we did not want to lose, the parts that were stuffed in the bag, maybe years ago, and are hidden and forgotten.
These two gems, awake and remembering, are the essential elements of Stopping.
Carpe diem!
HORACE, Odes
11
Stop and Go for It!
Stopping is simple to understand. It's a period of time spent doing nothing in order to gain everything. It's taking enough time and creating enough quietude so that you can remember the important questions of your life as well as the current answers that you are bringing to them.
Stopping is a girl sitting in a sun-filled windowseat gently stroking her purring cat, a woman with an open book in her lap gazing out the window and into a distant world, a man walking barefoot along an isolated beach feeling the wind in his face, a driver poised at a stoplight taking a deep breath and relaxing with a soothing thought rather than just wishing for the light to change, a busy nurse taking a one-minute breather and then smiling at her nasty patient, and a salesman mindfully eating his lunch while sitting on a park bench and looking at the sky.
Inherent in Stopping is the idea of creating enough space in your life, whether for thirty seconds or for thirty days, to make sure that you have first things first, that you are not so distracted that you lose the moments of meaning in life, whatever else you might be in the process of gaining.
Notice the definition of Stopping is “Doing nothing as much as possible.” “Doing nothing” is a relative term here. Sometimes it will mean not doing much, doing something that takes very little energy, or doing something that you love to do. Paradoxically, doing nothing is doing something very beneficial. Again, Stopping should not be confused with inactivity; life is what it is about.
Stopping is not running from life or avoiding responsibilities. On the contrary, it is moving into life and its responsibilities in a new way. It is having the courage to go precisely where your meanings and values lie and spend time there. Stopping is like an embrace: it holds close and dear those moments which matter the most to you.
Carpe diem seems to be a popular saying these days. I've seen it on tee shirts and it often makes its way into movies. Carpe diem means “seize the day” and are the words of Horace, a Roman poet who lived just before the change of the eras (65–8 B.C.E.). Carpe diem is an encouragement to take advantage of the time you have. Contemporary equivalents might be “follow your dreams,” “don't miss the chances life gives you, you might not get any more,” “take a risk.” If you really want something, don't let anything get in the way. Have the guts to go for it!
Seize the day. Go for it. Follow your dreams. Take a risk. This encouragement to achieve and get things done was popular in the ancient times of Horace, and we are still quoting him. So what about Stopping in the face of carpe diem?—they seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one end we have “stop, be quiet, take time to be spiritually awake, and remember the important things” and on the other we have “seize the day, get out and go for it, get what you want, and do it now.” Are these mutually exclusive encouragements? Not at all.
I would rather say they differ in sequence of application. In other words, before you seize anything, go for anything, dream, follow, or risk anything, you'd better know what it is you are seizing, going for, or risking. Because we have too much in our lives, we have a tendency to be impulsive, to act before we think—or better—go before we stop. It's like the executive who was so busy climbing the corporate ladder that it was only very near the top that the realization came: The ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. So before we get going, we had better start from a Stopped position or else our going, like my freshman “revolt” at Georgetown, will be inaccurately chosen, poorly carried out, unsuccessfully ended, or all three.
The combination of doing nothing and carpe diem is exactly what Stopping is all about. So with apologies to Horace, I say that we had better know what diem we want to carpe before we carpe it, or we are likely to end up with the wrong day. Before you seize the day, stop for a day.
Or even for a minute.
Finally it has penetrated my thick skull.This life—this moment—is nodress rehearsal. This is it!
F. KNEBEL
12
Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts
Stopping has three levels. They are based on length of time: Stillpoints, Stopovers, and Grinding Halts. All are effective, but each one is meant for different moments of life.
A Stillpoint is Stopping quickly and doing nothing for just a moment. It is brief and meant to be used anytime, all the time (every day, in fact), and many times a day. Stillpoints are essentially very short: a few seconds or a few minutes. They are designed to take advantage of the unfilled moments in life: waiting for the microwave to heat your coffee, brushing your teeth, or sitting at a stoplight. They are also to be used at moments of stress: walking into an interview, during a feeling of anger, or when you know you're going to be late for an appointment.
Somewhat less frequent are Stopovers, which are those times that are longer than a Stillpoint, an hour to several days. These are the wonderful times of Stopping, when you really have the feeling that you have been away and have had a mini-vacation for the soul. The most common expression of the Stopover is the afternoon, day, or weekend away, whether you go anywhere or not.
Grinding Halts will probably happen only a couple of times in most people's lives. They are times from a week to a month— or more. Obviously, these need more planning, require a larger and deeper commitment of time and energy, and typically happen at times of life transitions.
These are the three levels, or the three expressions, of Stopping. Each is effective,