Violence Is A Broken Home

Being productive with other humans is what our lives solely depend on. We must learn to be kind to one another, and practice respect not just towards others, but towards ourselves. In the list of twelve touch stones, I believe that we are taught this kind of respect and self-awareness.  The twelfth one in particular stood out to me at this time in my life. In the touchstone it states that we must practice slowing down, that “the speed of modern life can cause violent damage to our souls and I could not agree more. My life is a constant power struggle between things that need to be done, and the time that I never seem to have enough of, to do them in. In my days there are few hours in between and after that I use for sleep while the rest must be loaded with purpose.

I work two different jobs and go to school for what would be considered a full time schedule. Within these two jobs I usually work 6 days a week, occasionally not getting off until 1 o’clock in the morning, just to get off, do some homework and go to sleep, before school the next morning. I have never quite learned how to take things slowly and now that I have grown up and taken on these responsibilities, I would do anything to go back to freshman year of high school and just, relax. My entire day is a plan, it is always scheduled and there has not been time to slow down in quite some time.

Philosopher Thomas Merton was the brain behind the quote in which I referred to earlier. I personally think the speed at which I live my life is damaging to me at times and leaves me far more of a stressed and anxious person then I deserve to be. To say that I get no free time for my social life, would be false, but I have realized over the past couple years that I have not made time for myself. By saying that we not only cause damage but, ‘violent damage’ to our souls, speaks to me deeply. While we can’t entirely escape our reality, I feel we need to learn how to control our busy lives and make more time for what puts us at one with our souls.

I like to believe that our bodies are just homes for our souls to live.  And like a normal home that gets beat down by the elements, we are the same. I think what is most important is how we treat our souls because whether you die young or old, brittle or brand new, you have one thing that will live on and it’s your soul. This taught me that while we have to keep up with modern life to stay alive, that it is most important for us to slow down on occasion in order for us to keep our souls healthy. We must learn to balance the way that we live and leave time for relaxation and spiritual healing or else surrender our healthy souls to violent self-interactions.