The other day I was cleaning out some files and came across a page with this quote from Thomas Merton.  It so reminded me of why I fell in love with his writing, I thought I would share it with you all.  I hope it give you pause to think for a moment or two the way it did (and still does) for me.

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, it its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton (Doubleday & Company. Garden City, NY, 1968, p. 86