BY Mahdi Al Khayari
On a cold night at Al Qurum Beach, holding a cup of tea to warm myself, I recalled the course of my past days and reflected on myself. I rearranged my thoughts and planned for the days ahead, wondering whether I was on the right path or walking another altogether. That hour I spent alone with myself for the first time was not a fleeting moment. I learned that slowing down, even briefly, can realign your course for years to come, that time is sufficient to make the right decisions. I finished my cup of tea knowing what I would do and accomplish in the days ahead.
Then I asked myself: what prevents us from having such a calm moment, even for an hour, in our day? What would we lose, if we slowed down for just one hour? We rarely consider that this single hour can sometimes make all the difference. We are not in a race that forces us to keep moving without pause.
In a world where desires race ahead and ambitions intertwine with destiny, we find ourselves in constant conflict with reality, forgetting that the soul has a rightful claim to rest. Human beings are created with an insatiable drive seeking glory as far as they can; if they find work, they aspire to wealth; and if they attain wealth, they look to power. Such is the human condition: eyes that never stop looking upward, and hearts that sometimes overlook the meaning of serenity.
Perhaps the greatest loss in this relentless race is our ability to stop and listen to our inner voice before the noise of the world. We run through a dark tunnel with no light at the end, as if calmness were a luxury reserved only for those who have stepped out of life’s race or awakened to peace and tranquility when, in truth, it is the hidden force that gives us the strength to continue. A person is not defeated by being late as much as by the absence of small moments with oneself moments in which we reorganize, regain balance, and grant ourselves the chance to be calm.
With time, we realise that calmness is not merely a silent moment, nor weakness or surrender; it is a blessing through which one learns to choose what deserves attention and what should be left behind, without allowing one’s peace to be stolen.
We often think that striving is a constant confrontation, while true striving lies in knowing when to stop, when to be silent, and when to conserve our energy for moments that require greater steadiness.
Calmness is not an escape, as some believe; it is composure and deliberation in preparation for the real confrontation a return to a space where we rediscover our path away from the clamor of others. It is a moment in which we understand that craving everything makes us lose everything; that a heart that never rests is consumed, and a mind that never quiets scatters and frays. And in the end, we may arrive at a simple truth: the most beautiful gift we can give ourselves is not a new achievement or a higher goal, but peace of mind and inner serenity a moment in which we restore our balance and tell ourselves that it is time for the soul to rest.
We live in an age crowded with noise, where calmness becomes an act of resistance to chaos, to the self, and to comparisons that exhaust both heart and mind. Calmness reshapes our relationship with ourselves; it allows us to see things more clearly.
When we are calm, we understand that much of what preoccupies us is not worth the anxiety, and that some doors we knock on insistently never open because goodness does not lie behind them. We learn to lighten the weight of our days and to give everything its due without exaggeration for not every conflict is worth fighting, not every opinion worth defending, and not every noise worth our ears.
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