Back in my 20s and 30s, when socializing and grabbing life by the horns was extremely important to me, I lived a very “loud” life. My job as a former reporter was action-packed. My personal life was action-packed. My marriage — which incidentally didn’t last — was action-packed.

It was a fun, dizzying, chaotic, crazy time. I ran from adventure to adventure with hardly a breath. I travelled everywhere – to Europe, to Asia, across this country and back. My head swam with grand schemes. It seems I lived with high drama and in a lot of circumstances, crises.

And then, by my own design, it all stopped. I mean, it didn’t stop immediately. Even as my life continued to be in upheaval, it took me a while to figure out that I could stop living a life tantamount to existing in an airplane hangar, with the plane’s engines going full bore.

There’s been something remarkable about making all of it stop: The silence and tranquility that ensues.

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