096: Enhance Your Longevity with Less Noise, Less Nosy Meddling, and Less Inactivity

Some written narratives are like a Swiss Army Knife - practical and functional when you need it.

I see this biblical reference having that type of practicality.

"Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business, and working with your hands... - 1 Thessalonians 4:11 NLT

There's a powerful triad of wisdom within those words.

• Stillness ("...live a quiet life...")
• Mindfulness ("...minding your own business...")
• Action ("...working with your hands...")

How different would the world be if those three values were lived out consistently?

Life is full of noise, nosy-ness, and neglect.

As you age, it becomes much easier to turn down your hearing aids to drown out the noise, steer out of your lane by offering unsolicited advice, and lounge in your Lazy-Boy as a reward for your pre-retirement years of work.

Those choices, while practical on occasion, miss the deeper values between the lines of the above mentioned reference.

Your consistent capability for stillness, mindfulness, and productive action can enhance your longevity

I reflect every morning on the shared biblical reference.

It's a true-north compass bearing that keeps me sane, secure, and productive.

• Still yourself to increase your peace
• Mind your own business through self-awareness
• Do something to remain active and productive

Find peace through stillness

Living a "quiet life" isn't merely about going off the grid to a cabin by the lake with no humans within miles.

Though that might sound tempting on occasion.

This is more about the stillness-factor.

As in, stilling your mind, your emotions, your reactions, your overall demeanor about noisy, stressful things.

It's about quieting your mind and your soul.

Doing so requires limiting or radically reducing the "noise" in your life.

Life is full of static noise: political opinions, religious judgement, social media comments, likes and dislikes.

Worse, it threatens your pursuit and experience of peace.

You can choose to turn down the volume - to choose stillness as Ryan Holiday defines it.

"In English: stillness.
To be steady while the world spins around you. To act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude - exterior and interior - on command."1

Mind your business through self-awareness

Nothing becomes your business until you make it your business.

And that happens in a moment of choice - one that might be better served by self-awareness.

Ever been in a situation where you didn't read-the-room...or the mood.

Perhaps you reacted instead of retreating and you poked your nose where it didn't belong.

How'd that work out for you?

More international, national, and personal conflicts and riffs could be avoided if someone...anyone...would have minded their own business.

In a world of concerned, overly sensitive "Karens" (I couldn't resist) be a champion of self-awareness.

Mind the moment by asking:

• "Does my opinion or perspective add value to the conversation or circumstance?"
• "Will butting in turn up the heat?"
• "What will happen if I choose to stay-in-my-lane instead of getting involved?"

Some things aren't your concern (or responsibility) - such knowledge increases your self-awareness.

Stay productively active

There's alignment between "minding your own business" and "working with your hands."

Focusing on your tasks-at-hand enables you to be less focused on what someone else is (or isn't) doing.

Essentially, being productively active keeps you fully engaged in what you enjoy doing, creating, producing, or achieving.

As you age, this becomes a life-giving, longevity-enhancing action especially as you enter the retirement season (by age or choice).

There's active retirement and there's reactive retirement.

Reactive retirement burdens you with a what-now attitude: boredom, being sedentary, wasting time and financial savings.

Active retirement enables you to have productive pursuits: reading, writing, volunteering, creating something, mentoring, farming, painting, traveling, etc.

As long as you have capable hands keep them active and increase your productive capacity.

Noise, nosy-ness, and neglected opportunity are a threat to longevity but you can choose otherwise

• Find peace through stillness
• Mind your business through self-awareness
• Stay productively active

Press on...

Eddie

Sources:

1-Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key, Preface, xvi.