Cherishing a morning ritual

Embracing and appreciating the mundane miracles of everyday life

Hi friends,

What works for you to find peace in the quiet, sacred morning hours?

As I awaken each morning, I drink chilled water, grab a banana, and steep a cup of black or green tea near a living room window. I cherish this simple morning ritual, basking in the freshness of a new day, a clean slate. Ideally, the phone sits in another room, notifications off, and I sit with my journal for a few minutes to start the day. This is no perfect beginning. It’s one way to try to find grace and harmony in places we tend to overlook.

Sometimes, doubt settles in, naturally. Sometimes, worry about future events and obligations creeps in. Many of us feel run by an anxious mind. Many times, we don’t feel like working out, going to work, writing, running errands, or even showing up for the day. But a bias toward action hardly steers us off course. Discipline can guide us.

It’s never too late to start anew and write it in your heart that today is a wonderful day to be alive, breathing, and moving through the world. As Marcus Aurelius wrote 2,000 years ago, when we arise, we are “awakening to the work of a human being.” How sacred and honorable.

Time continues to whiz by. We’re all getting older by the minute, though as author Willa Cather has written, with each day, we have the opportunity to grow closer to ourselves and the people around us. There are people to help, friends to support, and family to love. “One of the pleasures of getting older,” she wrote, “is that one can get so much nearer to one’s own people, and the dear ones of them become dearer all the time.”

Each morning, I am reminded of this speed of life — how another sunrise and another first sip of tea represents another 24 hours gone by. Then I may go for a short walk, inhale the fresh air, and soak up the sun. The mind wanders. I might ask: Am I doing work that matters and impacts? What is the path to serenity? What am I putting off?

Readers, I hope this finds you well. I’d love to hear: What tiny part of your morning routine do you cherish?

---

Current reads & re-reads:

---

A few observations this week:

• Genius Turner said, “To truly feel rich, one merely has to add up everything that money can’t buy.” This strategy leads to a gratitude practice where you write down what you do have, so you don’t fall for the delusion there’s more you must have.

• Kindness is a powerful stress reliever: Doing acts of kindness can reduce depression or anxiety, an Ohio State University study found. Tune into what others are likely experiencing, take action — even in small ways like smiling — and be consistently kind, the study found. Acts of kindness also help us be more connected to others.

• Recently, I learned about the Buddhist concept of right action from author

  Suleika Jaouad
  and her excellent newsletter. It’s about acting “from a well-intentioned and wise motive, without attachment to the outcome. I love the idea of carrying this as an orientation, and it’s something I’ve been working on.”

• My ex-roommate, Saurabh, is from India and he figured one reason many people are struggling mentally lies in isolation. In India, he said, “everyone does things together.” In the U.S., he noticed many more people dining out alone, sitting at bars drinking alone, and working alone. If this is because of loneliness, it could take a toll. (To be clear, being lonely is not the same thing as being alone. By definition, loneliness is sadness caused because one having few friends or little company. One could be happy and supported but sometimes alone, such as reading in a coffee shop alone, walking in a park alone, or eating at a restaurant alone.)

• Chuang-Tzu: “Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”

• In case you missed it, my recent piece on a Brooklyn restaurant setting the standard for responsible dining for Anne Therese Gennari's

  The Climate Optimist
  can be found here. In 2000, owner Naama Tamir came to New York from Israel. She worked in restaurants and fell in love with the food industry, seeing it as a vehicle to fulfillment: feed others, make them happy, and bring them together over a meal.

  “We had a strong connection to nature,” she says. “As a family of Holocaust survivors, we had a connection and understanding of resources, and wanting to take care of them — just being very mindful of consumption in general.”

---

Photo of the week:

Doodles Coco and Mochi relaxing on a midwinter morning in Brooklyn

---

Parting thought: “Some people wait all day for 5 pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don’t be one of them. Life is just too short. Time is flying. Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been, or how much potential you have.” — Marc and Angel Chernoff

Parting question: What’s one thing you can do right now to take better care of yourself?

Celebrate your gifts,

Matthew

P.S. — If Inner Peace has helped you in some way, please consider forwarding this email to someone you care about. Thank you for reading and trusting me with these words, a privilege I don’t take lightly.