For as long as I can remember, my mind has been a vast and restless sea, where thoughts rise and fall in waves, sometimes calm, other times stormy and relentless. I have always carried within me the tendency to overthink; to over analyze, dissect, and replay events in an endless mental cycle, trying to extract meaning or anticipate what lies ahead. Recognizing this as an essential part of who I am, I have nonetheless devoted myself to learning how to temper its weight.

In time, I have found that the journey to inner stillness begins with presence; the realization that true peace resides solely in the passing moment, a truth both elemental and profound. Rather than letting the mind pull me into hypothetical futures or past regrets, there is a lesson to savor the stillness found in today; a simplicity that both shelters and liberates me. This self-discipline of anchoring myself to the present frees me from the prison of my own thoughts; a notion that I, as a lifelong seeker of self-betterment, find humbling; and frees me from the confines of a mind otherwise driven toward ceaseless questioning.

Through this pursuit, I have also learned a gentler approach toward myself. I no longer try to control or reshape every thought; instead, I watch them as they arise, holding them in compassion, allowing each one to pass, like clouds drifting through an open sky. In a life marked by losses, heartbreaks, and personal challenges, I’ve learned that my thoughts are neither adversaries nor burdens, merely travelers in my mind’s landscape, appearing and departing in their own time.

Another insight is the understanding that not all problems demand an immediate solution. This is one I’ve wrestled with deeply, as I tend to seek resolution and order. But in realizing that some answers reveal themselves in time, I’ve found an unexpected strength in patience. Accepting uncertainty, even discomfort, has been liberating, a quiet revolution of spirit, inviting me to embrace life’s unknowns.

In the end, I see that the path to peace is unending, an ongoing practice of becoming. Each day, I am reminded that I am not my thoughts but the quiet awareness beneath them, a space of stillness untouched by any turmoil. In accepting this, I’ve uncovered a quiet strength in patience; a willingness to reside within life’s uncertainties and to welcome even discomfort as part of the whole. Through all my efforts, I am learning to hold onto this wisdom, a steadying hand in a world that never stops churning.

—

I sit and spin the web of “why”
Tugging threads that cloud my mind,
Of could-have-beens and might-have-seens,
Where echoes haunt the in-betweens.

I parse each word, rewind each breath,
Reframe the scene; of an endless quest.
But truth slips by like morning mist,

Lost in the maze my mind has kissed.
And still, I loop, around, again;
Bound to a past that won’t unbend.

— Sincerely, Boris