But out of fear or pressure, or both, we often remove ourselves from life in order to handle situations. How often do we steel our feelings in order to act objectively? How often do lovers remove themselves from their field of intimacy in order to leave a relationship? How often do we inwardly sever our bond to a dear one who is ill, long before they’re gone, to enable us to move on without the pain of losing them? How often do we minimize the life before us, so we can more easily do what we want?

We also stop living our own life when we succumb to the judgment and rejection of others. If you haven’t encountered it yet, you’ll surely be faced with the pressure of someone demanding more than you can safely give without damaging your soul. Whether that someone is a needy friend, an arrogant boss, an inexorable religion, or a perfectionist brand of self-justification, it all comes down to how each of us dares to say no when asked to be other than who we are.

And the violent speed of our age doesn’t help. In a world so mobile and transient we can wake up married in Atlanta and go to sleep divorced in Fort Worth; the game has become who can snatch a mouthful of seed and be on their way first. In a world where sophistication means we show nothing, the mind becomes as cold as a camera shutter, opening and closing rapidly so as not to let too much in. In a world that makes a fortress of objectivity, we avoid the one frontier that returns us to first-hand experience: our ability to care. In a world that deems simplicity as dull, patience as slothful, and compassion as entangling, we give up inroads to our very core if we can no longer empathize.

Succumbing to speed is a form of isolation that makes us feel inadequate, because we’re always falling short, always catching up. But stopping alone is not entering stillness, because stopping alone does not let who we are merge with where we are. Still, to stop and slow down is a beginning, because we start to find what matters when we stop rushing.