Small Things, Big Calm
My Sunday Overthinker is back after a long break.
Normally, wisdom is delivered on Sundays. However, as I shall be spending this Sunday at work, you are receiving this week’s edition on a Saturday. Consider it an early delivery service with no extra charge 😉
I have a theory.
The older I get, the more I think that peace does not arrive in great, dramatic moments. It arrives quietly, hidden inside small routines.
The washing machine hums in the background. The dogs wait for breakfast. A kettle begins to boil. The dishes disappear from the sink one by one. The bed is made. A blanket is folded. A floor is swept. A plant gets watered because, somehow, it has survived another week under my care.
Nothing extraordinary is happening.
And yet something is.
Nothing extraordinary is happening.
And yet something is.
Psychologists often say that people need a sense of safety. We usually imagine safety as a place, a person, a bank account or a locked front door.
But perhaps safety is also rhythm.
A familiar sequence of small things repeated over time.
The dogs know this better than we do. They trust that breakfast will arrive. They know when it is time for a walk. They understand the shape of the day without needing to analyse it.
Meanwhile, humans are capable of standing in the kitchen while mentally travelling through the last ten years and the next ten at the same time.
We worry. We replay conversations. We solve problems that do not yet exist.
Then we wash a plate.
And another.
We wipe a worktop. Change a towel. Put fresh water in the dogs’ bowls. Open a window. Make a cup of tea.
Slowly, almost without noticing, the mind begins to follow the rhythm of the hands.
Perhaps this is why ordinary chores feel strangely comforting. Not because they are exciting. Nobody has ever written an epic poem about unloading a dishwasher. But because they remind us that life is not lived in giant leaps. It is lived in small movements repeated day after day.
A kettle boiling. Dogs eating. Clean sheets. Fresh air through an open window. The same simple rhythm.
And maybe that rhythm is what calmness really sounds like.
Until next Sunday...
take care of your mind, your heart,
and the little things that quietly build your life.
Margarethh78