Above All Else, Guard Your Heart

📝Reflection

When young, I thought what needed guarding lay outside — wealth, position, reputation. But living taught me that these collapse overnight once the heart collapses. Three thousand years ago a Hebrew sage said it plainly: all the springs of life flow from the heart. This is not religion but physics. As no clear water comes from a muddy spring, no calm day comes from a shaken heart. What Aurelius called the inner citadel, this verse called 'the first thing to guard.' The place I must patrol before all others today is my own heart.