Silence is Golden

I was reading in USA Today this afternoon when I came across an interesting article. The article discusses a man named Vijay Eswaran, who is a top CEO in Asia. For an hour each day, before the sun comes up, Mr. Eswaran has an hour of silence and meditation. I found this to be fascinating as an hour set aside for pure silence is non-existent in my life, unless you count an hour of sleep at night when I'm not exactly reflecting but virtually unconscious.

So what are we supposed to do with this hour of silence? "It's not sitting in a sea of tranquility trying to figure out the meaning of the universe. It's about taking control of your life. It begins with analyzing the day that has gone by, going through the goals that you had set and seeing what you achieved and what you failed to achieve and trying to derive lessons...How much of what we do today counts in a month or six months? The point is to go deeper."

I thought about how different my life would be if I took the time to take this hour of silence. I've always been intimidated by silence, like I said, unless I'm sleeping. But the thought of how much I could accomplish and change about my life if I truly sat back and thought about it in a deeper way blows my mind. The thought of taking control of my life excites me to no end. Mr. Eswaran states: "Most of us allow life to pick us up like a piece of driftwood, and we get thrown back to the shore every once in a while. We've lost track of where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do, the purpose of our existence." I am essentially a piece of driftwood in the grand scheme of things. I'm seriously going to ATTEMPT to enforce this hour of silence and tranquility into my life. "Silence is like exercise. A person who never does it would rather get shot than get started. Once started, he would rather die than stop." I'm seeing silence in a whole new light. We'll see if I can dig deep and find the self-discipline required to get my life back into focus.