Peace of mind ... difficult to think of anything further away from modern life. We are literally besieged, in fact, by noises, stimuli, requests of all kinds. Personal, family and professional problems often add up and we find ourselves with smartphones and computers overloaded with messages and emails. The various devices we possess are besieging us and work has now become more and more often 24/7. Let's face it: we would like to stop, to take a break, but in the end we get overwhelmed by the whirlwind that surrounds. The American thinker Ryan Holiday in his "Peace of mind is the key" (Hoepli Editore, 2022, Euro 17.90, pp. 256. Ebook too) then provides us with some ideas, ideas and concrete moves to make the our existence.
It does so first of all by reminding us that if tranquility is the most powerful energy to face the challenges that are expected, accessing this "energy source" is by no means easy and obvious. Feeding stillness and dominating our inner turmoil, slowing down our thoughts and understanding our emotions are very difficult objectives to reach, so much so that already in 1654 a philosopher like Blaise Pascal declared: "All human problems arise from the inability to sit in a room alone ".
Yet, as Ryan Holiday writes, tranquility must necessarily be found: “It is the goal at which the arrow must point to our bow. It gives birth to new ideas, refines the point of view and highlights the connections between one element and another. Slow down the ball so we can hit it. It creates a vision, it helps us resist the pressures of the mass, it makes room for gratitude and wonder. Peace of mind allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the light that illuminates the brightest minds and allows the rest of humanity to get closer, to understand their reasoning ”. It helps to be more loving parents, more inspired artists, more careful investors, better trained athletes, more enlightened scientists and, overall, better people. Precisely for these reasons tranquility has been celebrated by the greatest thinkers and philosophers and considered a special virtue by all religions.
To get to the source of this light capable of illuminating our path - a light that is within us, but that we cannot bring out - Holiday proposes the events and strategies of men and women who, just like all of us, struggled to emerge from worries and from the responsibilities of life, but which in the end managed to find and maintain a state of tranquility: from John F. Kennedy to Queen Victoria, from Napoleon to Leonardo da Vinci to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. At the same time the book also focuses on poems, novels, philosophical texts and scientific research. He makes forays into every current of thought and historical period to tell us about strategies that help us to guide our thoughts, to process emotions, to have control over our body. In this way we could do less… and at the same time do more. Get more but need less. Feel better and feel better people. The starting point is the idea of focusing on three fundamental areas, the timeless triad of mind, body and spirit: the head, the flesh, the heart. For each of these areas, Holiday explains how to reduce the disturbing elements to achieve true tranquility… the one we all deserve and which, thanks to this book, appears more attainable.
