Sit and think. Or just sit.

So much noise. So much advice. Everywhere we turn. From every direction.

Five things to do on a first date. Three ways to relax. The One thing you should never say in an interview. Seven signs you’re in a bad relationship. Ten life hacks to make yourself popular. Fours ways to lose weight. Eight habits preventing you from attaining your goals.

The messages here? You don’t know how to date, to relax, to get a job, to have a relationship, to make friends. You’re fat. And you can’t meet your goals.

You’re a mess! But we can fix you!

There is so much noise coming at us every day, telling us how messed up we are, how wrong we’ve got it, it’s amazing our heads don’t explode.

Under the pressures of our modern world, our primitive brain still dominates our first responses. The fight, flight, or freeze response engages before the conscious brain even gets the message.

So maybe we are exploding (or imploding) in ways that only human beings can. Suicide rates are at an all time high, as is addiction – to drugs, to food, to shopping, to the internet – name your poison.

Isn’t numbing with drugs, food, and shopping a flight response? Isn’t feeling stuck or overwhelmed a “freeze” response? We can’t make a decision, so we do nothing.

But wait! Has someone else planted these ideas of “not good enough”? Are those messages even true?

Maybe the advice itself is the real problem. Could we be trying to fix things that aren’t even broken?

Here’s my advise. And, yes, I’m aware of the irony.

Don’t do any of it. No five things, no three ways, no life hacks. None of it!

Just get quiet. Just sit. No phone. No clock. No meditation music. No apps to assist you; you don’t need their assistance! Listen to the quiet.

Don’t label this quiet time as meditation. That just adds pressure; the opposite of what we’re trying to do, or rather NOT do. No intentions. No expectations. Just sit.

Listen to whatever is around you. A bird sings, the refrigerator hums, a car passes in the street, a dog barks. All this happens without you having to do anything.

Nothing to fix.

Just sit until you’re done sitting. In the quiet of the present moment, you may find there’s more right with your life than there is wrong. What others perceive as “wrong” might be perfectly right for you.

Nothing to fix. Nothing. To. Fix.        ….except maybe dinner.