Chapter 25
An elderly man spent his mornings in the garden — just a few square meters of herbs, birdsong, and silence. A neighbor once asked why he didn’t rent it out for extra income.
“I like my mornings quiet,” he said, brushing dirt from his hands. “Pulling weeds. Listening to the birds.”
While others squeezed profit from every inch, he spent his time with care — quietly, intentionally, beautifully.
What is your second handful costing you?
There’s an old line in Ecclesiastes — a verse that doesn’t care about your to-do list, but about your soul and spirituality.
“Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.”
Work isn’t the enemy. Showing up, creating, pushing hard — there’s deep meaning in that. But somewhere along the way, we stopped working for peace and started working against it. We didn’t mean to trade purpose for pressure — but somewhere between the deadlines and dopamine, we stopped asking why and just asked what’s next. Vision gave way to speed. Thoughtfulness drowned in efficiency. Rest became a problem to solve. We don’t just do more now — we are what we do. And somehow, in all our momentum, we forgot how to stop.
Ecclesiastes isn’t anti-effort. It’s anti-frenzy.
It’s telling us: You can win the race and still lose yourself.
One handful doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing what matters — and letting the rest go.
Amid the noise of more, peace is a sacred refusal. Not the kind that shouts, but the kind that stays still while everything else runs. Peace isn’t retreat — it’s resistance, a refusal to be consumed. In a culture that worships noise, speed, and output, choosing peace isn’t giving up — it’s fighting back.
Philemon