08 Dec How to Stay Calm & Motivated | Motivational Podcast

Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast, brought to you in part by Book of Zen, makers of wearable inspiration for a better world. Today’s podcast has been edited and adapted from the book “The Majesty of Calmness” by William George Jordan, published in 1900…..

Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the signpost of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of the life self-reliant and the self- controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power — ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.

No person lives their life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the one who is calm. Fatalists are not calm, but coward slaves of their environment, hopelessly surrendering to their present condition, recklessly indifferent to the future.

The fatalist accepts his or her life as a rudderless ship, drifting on the ocean of time. They have no compass, no chart, no known port to which they are sailing. Their self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in their existence of constant surrender. It is not calmness.

We who are calm have our course in life clearly marked on our chart. Our hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden reefs — we are ever prepared and ready for them. For we are made calm and serene by the realization that in these crises of our voyage, we need a clear mind and a cool head; that we have nothing to do but live each day the best we can by the light we have; that we will never flinch nor falter for a moment; that, though we may have to tack and leave our course for a time, we will never drift, we will get back into the true channel, we will keep ever headed toward our harbor.

When we will reach it, how we will reach it, matters not to us. We rest in calmness, knowing we have done our best. If our best seems to be overthrown or overruled, then we must still bow our heads — in calmness.

No man or woman is permitted to know the future of their life, the finality. The world commits to us only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days to use the best of our knowledge and ability. Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet — below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self- control.

When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction — be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you.

Study the disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation of the supreme calmness that is possible for you.

Read The Entire Essay in Evergreen: 50 Inspirational Life Lessons

You can also gain access to this essay and full transcript by becoming a patron of the Inspirational Living podcast. For more information, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/inspirationalpodcasts.