With patience and love, you can learn to feel comfortable in your place so you return to it, tend it, nurture it, and make it your utopia. But to be still, to do nothing, to deal with the turbulence of the mind is challenging and perhaps not too pleasant at times. Cultivating the discipline to be still is not easy, it is difficult for everybody. Successful people manoeuvre around the mind’s apathy and laziness by creating a safe and stimulating space that they enjoy coming back to. But a happy place alone isn’t enough to placate the mind if it is primed to easy distraction and instant gratification. Break the habit of checking your messages and media streams each time you feel the urge to do so and take a step back to look at the neediness that triggers it. Successful people practice doing nothing. In their quiet moments, when they feel no desire to do anything, they don’t try to fill up that space with “good” or “bad” things, such as reading a book or doing something “constructive”. They stay with the emptiness; listening to the rustle of the wind outside, or the myriad other sounds of silence. Finally, aim for a goal; aim for progress towards insight or endurance or even happiness. With a purpose and focal point in sight, the mind naturally gravitates towards the source of its fruition.

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