Cultivating Mental Silence

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Stop! Slow down! Unplug?

Hot off the heels of receiving my PhD this past July I find myself sitting in my gazebo on a beautiful Spring morning attempting to come to terms with what Spring Breakmeans. For the past 7 years, "it" has been a mixed bag; a break frommy day job (teacher) that enabled me to focus my energies on an intensive andincredibly rewarding effort to get as much of my doctoral work completed ashumanly possible! That work usually included upwards to 5 1/2 to 6 hours ofreading, writing and thinking. Without that time I am certain that I would nothave achieved my goals! That said, maintaining that kind of workload over such a long period of time has created in me a certain kind of confusion. What am I supposed to do with myself today, tomorrow…three days from now? Is my Spring Break a failure if I do not have anything to show for it at the end? In my endless attempt to cultivate mental silence, I find myself thinking; as the wind ruffles the screen of the gazebo and songs of birds surround me that what I do during Spring Break, in the endis not as important as the language I use to annotate "it."