Choose to sit still.

A small competition in faraway Korea has attracted great attention from many Vietnamese people: sitting in a daze. It sounds strange and funny, but it is true, there is such a competition in your country and it is not new but has been held since 2014.

Contestants are allowed to bring whatever items they want, and are required to sit on a yoga mat and do nothing but stare into space for 90 minutes.

The organizers will measure each person's heart rate every 15 minutes. The person with the most stable heart rate and the least expression on their face will be the winner. If anyone sleeps, laughs, or uses technology, that contestant will immediately lose.

The purpose of the contest is to slow down the human brain, to give it a rest, with the meaning of promoting a free, peaceful life, temporarily away from the stress and pressure of everyday life. Surprisingly, the contest attracted 4,000 participants! Many of them shared that they participated not to win prizes, but because they really needed 90 minutes to sit quietly without thinking, doing anything, and under no pressure. They were so tired of the competition in life!

Reading the news about the strange competition in Korea, I suddenly thought to myself, how long has it been since I did anything? It seems that except for a few hours of sleep each day, we are always doing something, anytime and anywhere. We go to school - to serve the need to build and enrich our knowledge. We go to work - of course, to serve the need to make a living. We eat, drink, move, chat, do housework... Even when we sit in one place, we don't really stop. We have to scroll through our phones, read a book, drink a cup of coffee, think about all sorts of things in life...

It turns out that for a long time, we have viewed our bodies as an endless machine, constantly spinning, either in circles or moving forward. We rarely ask ourselves if we are tired, exhausted, or want to stop and rest. Or even if we do ask, and the answer is yes, what we usually do is ignore it, because that's life, because life is like that, no one is allowed to stop while the whole society is constantly operating.

There is a sad truth: we are so busy connecting with the whole world, hoping to understand everything in it, that we rarely connect with ourselves - a wonderful, complex, mysterious microcosm; a microcosm with countless vulnerable planets, in need of protection with ultimate understanding.

We know who was the first person to set foot on the Moon, which country launched a cruise missile into space, which billionaire is developing a tourism project on Mars, which colleague got a raise this month, which neighbor is cooking sour fish head soup for lunch... but we don't know what we want, how we feel, whether we are happy or not. We seem to know everything, but it turns out we know nothing. We think we understand the world, but how many of us have recognized the world inside? It seems that most of the things we do, think, and understand only satisfy the most obvious needs of each person, which is the need to exist, to breathe. What about the need to live - a full, complete life that is not only material?

We tend to disregard concerns about the spiritual world. Intellectuals always believe in what they want, anything that does not bring immediate benefits is meaningless. Now, if we were told to set aside a small amount of time in a day, a week, a month… to just sit still, do nothing, let the body relax and rest, because it deserves it, many people would grumble that only people with abnormal minds would do so, or perhaps, they would believe that only true monks would choose that quiet path.

But try it, try it, just try to spend a few minutes - give your mind a moment of silence to look deep into yourself, to listen to your inner self, sometimes you will see a completely different sky inside. Sit still, don't move, don't make noise, it's really difficult, it's not a joke. Keep your mind as calm as your body, keep your mind calm, clear, not clouded by calculations, schemes, thoughts. Try it and you will see, it turns out that sometimes we can't control ourselves, it turns out that we don't understand ourselves that much, it turns out that we are not ourselves.

There is a very good song by musician Trinh Cong Son called “Every day I choose a joy”. If “every day I choose just once”, then have you ever “chosen flowers and smiles”, “chosen the full sunshine, chosen the coming rain”, “chosen to sit still” to “see clearly the homeland, sit and think about yourself”?