Day 3 – Find a Place of Isolation, Then Count to 1,000
Today’s email from the Daily Stoic started with this quote:
“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about.” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.2
I laughed when I read this since just last night as I finally did the cold plunge challenge, I chronicled how I was a slave to my mind for most of the day as I sought to avoid the chill.
Today our challenge was to find a quiet, isolated place and count to 1,000. I loved the idea of this challenge, because I do believe that a lot of destructive thoughts, words, and actions that exist in the world today come out of a person’s desire to constantly react without pausing to go within.
So I sat in my big blue chair, stared ahead and got to counting. Here are a few things I noticed along the way.
For the first 50 numbers, I counted slowly, luxuriously. One…Two…Three…Mmmm…Ahhh… It felt so good. Then, suddenly, my brain did kick in and say to me: “Um, lady, if you count this slow all the way to one thousand, you’ll be sitting in this seat all day!” Instantly, I sped up my counting and raced to one hundred.
After I got to one hundred, I still felt the need for speed! So instead of saying one hundred and one, I said one-oh-oh. When I hit two hundred, I did the same thing. Two-oh-one. Two-oh-two. It had never really occurred to me how cumbersome the phrase of two hundred and two was before!
I carried on counting this way, a bit more slowly, but in this shorthand format all the way up until nine hundred. At nine hundred, my mind kicked in with another message. It said – “Oh, wait you’re almost at one thousand. No! This has been fun! Don’t rush! Slow down!”
I smiled to myself and enunciated nine hundred and one. Nine hundred and two. Nine hundred and ninety. Nine hundred and ninety-nine….One thousand!
In just over thirteen minutes, I had counted to one thousand and felt great about it. I love the idea shared by The Daily Stoic of replacing counting with the recitation of a personal mantra as a way to start the day or as a way to find calm and peace during the day. I’m proud that I stayed really focused and although my pace and enunciation kept changing, I never wavered from the task at hand. I forgot that I like this part of myself – my ability to focus and be disciplined.
Thanks for reminding me, challenge!