The Power of Calmness (By William George Jordan)

• By: Louis Ochiel
• Date: May 23, 2025

Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life—self-reliant and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power—ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis. The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness—petrifaction is not calmness; it's death, the silencing of all energies. No one lives his/her life more fully, more intensely, more consciously than the person who is calm.

The fatalist is not calm. He is the coward, the slave of his environment—hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in his existence and constant surrender. That is not calmness.

The person who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. His hand is ever on the helm: storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden reefs—he is prepared and ready. He is made calm and serene by the realization that, in the crises of his voyage, he needs a clear mind and a cool head. Then he has nothing to do but do each day the best he can, by the light he has—knowing he will never flinch nor falter for a moment.

Though he may have to tack and leave his course for a time, he will never drift. He will get back into the true channel. He’ll keep ever headed toward his harbor. When he will reach it, how he will reach it—matters not to him. He rests in calmness, knowing he’s done his best.

When the worries and cares of the day fret you and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction—become calm. Stop. Rest for a moment. Let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing your inferiority to them—permitting them to dominate you.

When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, tempt you to retaliate—become calm. When, for an instant, you forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge—become calm.

When the gray heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to escape. It remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, facing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle makes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run through on the quiet heron's lance-like bill.

No person in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being hindered in return—some way, somehow, sometime. Remain calm!

| "Now, although that was written at the turn of the century, in a language that today might sound a bit affected or archaic—it’s a good message." "If ever there were a quality needed in the crisis-filled world of today, it’s calmness—and the kind of clear thinking calmness produces." "I wonder how improved our days would be if we made it a point to go over that little message every morning." |