Three Modern Mantras

A handful of phrases to keep you sane

It’s hard to keep it together. Our minds, the more they age, seem to find chaos and decline around every corner. That is only natural. Entropy and dissolution are the overwhelming commonalities in the universe. It’s a miracle we’re able to keep any sense of order at all.

But keep it together we must. For our loved ones and also for our own sense of self-worth. On the chance that my experience could be of some use to others, I thought I’d share three mantras that came to me from different avenues. I repeat these phrases daily. They provide me with some relief.

1. “If I can’t sleep, at least I can rest”

It is three in the morning. A nightmare, an anxious thought of an undone task, a worry over a child. Whatever. You are awake. Wide awake. Moreover you are awake worrying about not being asleep. You have things to do when the sun rises. Things that require the full power of a well-rested mind. The thoughts of lost, un-regainable sleep torture you even more. A little while back the hiphop artist MC Paul Barman gave me this phrase: if I can’t sleep, at least I can rest. This is true. Nothing can stop you from lying in bed and at least giving your physical self repose from labor. Remember this when you torture yourself with the minutes of lost sleep ticking away. Nobody can take your rest away from you. And sometimes rest even leads you back to sleep.

2. “Doing something beats doing nothing”

When the resting (perchance the sleeping) is over, the day must begin. In the modern world that beginning is inevitably heralded by the call of the internet or the phone. To sit, slumped, distracting yourself is the way many of us try to dampen morning anxiety. It’s not that different from drinking a glass of wine to take the edge off a difficult day. Meanwhile, the tasks pile up so high that it feels impossible to pull one out and execute it. It’s as if your to dos are a giant jenga tower and the whole thing will collapse if you pull out the wrong stick first. Nonsense. Pick one, any one, and do it. The mood shift will be palpable.

3. “I have control over this day alone” (if I’m lucky)

To dos spin out into lists, tying your mind in knots and foretelling of a near future of only suffering. “If you think Monday is bad, get a load of Tuesday.” And so on. But when you reflect back on any given week how often can you say that the predictions made on Monday had any bearing on what actually transpired by Friday? If you are lucky, you have a certain degree of control over the day before you. Even that could get derailed. But worrying over the twists-and-turns that await you after the earth has gone through more than one full rotation is energy spent on a torture device of your own design.

I realize this all reads a bit like something you might read on the bottom of an iced tea cap. Mantras are not always transferable.

But these three work for me. I hope they work for you.