Then the landlord began to examine the house. He and she were going to divorce, so it was obvious that they would not continue renting the house any more. Then the landlord began examining the house. After looking around, the landlord screamed, “The walls are full of nails! How could I rent the house to others?”

He said, “The room is too small, so we could only hang things on the walls.” The landlord didn’t listen to him and turned around up to the floor. She began looking around her familiar room. Four years ago, she became his bride here. There were several nails on the wall, on which hung his clothes yesterday. After he lived in the room, he removed all the clothes boxes and bought her a desk in the spared room because he knew she loved writing and drawing.

The landlord took toolkit down and tried to pull the nails out. After the nails were removed, the walls were left with numerous holes. All of a sudden, she felt terribly heartbroken as if her heart was pierced(刺破)through those holes and bleeding nonstop. She sprang from the seat and shouted, “Stop pulling the nails! We will continue renting the house and will only move away after we buy our own!” He looked at her with great surprise and then turned around, tearing over his face.

She finally came to understand that marriage was like wall and that all quarrels and “cold wars” were like the nails on the wall. When all the nails were removed, only a wall with numerous holes would be left. But if all the nails were still in their own places, the wall was still complete and reliable. But in the past, what she saw was only those nails.

They hung all the things back to the wall. He asked her, "Are you really willing to lead a tough life with me? " She patted away the ashes on hands and looked at those things satisfactorily, saying, "Yes! For me, it's not a suffering to live. "

How I Freed Up Time to Daydream

I enjoyed Twitter. I genuinely did. 【小题1】. I’d find myself checking it when I should be working, running late to my daughters’ school events because I tried to fit in a quick glimpse or staying up far too late surfing vast oceans of information, tired and barely interested but unable to resist the glowing undertow (漩涡) pulling me in.

So I blocked Twitter. I went from being on it nearly every day to being off it for two months now.

Being offline didn’t make my life a land of meditative happiness. I still have three young loud kids, a job, a church, a spouse and a messy house. 【小题2】. The times when I checked Twitter were often the transition points in my day: when I finished a task, waiting in line or going to the bathroom, the few minutes before I fell asleep. Leaving these small moments of my day unfilled changed how I walk through time.

【小题3】: Guard the margins — those seemingly unimportant parts of our day and time. We need moments when we get no news, no videos, no opinions. We need moments when we daydream, when our minds go blank.

My friend Timothy is a studied musician. I asked him about the function of small breaks in music — of rests. 【小题4】. They help guide and change the course of a song.

Our days, which are so full of work and thinking, of arguing and learning, of disappointments and confusion, of striving and creating, must have moments when nothing much is happening. 【小题5】. Play the rests. Guard the margins. They matter.

When someone is going through a challenging time, for instance, it can be easy to assume (假设) that he needs advice. It is then going to be as though(好像) he doesn’t know what to do, meaning that he will need to be saved. We can then end up feeling a lot of pressure — pressure that will arise(出现) through having the need to say the right things to this person.   As a result of this, it is going to be about listening to what he is going through and simply being there for him; it will be about doing things for him. And company is a good choice.

Then again, this might not be something that causes us to experience any more pressure than we usually do, due to(由于) the fact that this is what we are used to doing. This is not going to be much of a surprise, considering we are likely to live in a world that is focused on doing rather than being.

When someone is going through a challenging time, what he might really need is for another person to just be there for him, meaning that having another person’s presence there will be more than enough. He will be able to express what is going on and this can allow him to let go of a lot of weight off his shoulders and to become clear about what he needs to do. We are then just being and don’t do anything, yet we would have had a big effect on him. You can ask him what happened and say some warm words to him.

This could be seen as a method that women would take as one wouldn’t have done anything, while the need to do something is a more masculine(阳刚的)method. If the other person wants our advice, we can provide it, but this is not something that we have to offer. Sitting back and not doing anything is going to be a challenge for us if we believe that our value is based on what we do. But doing something will stop us from being able to realize that our value is inherent (固有的) and that we don’t need to do anything.

No tools, techniques(技巧), special words or phrases are needed; the only thing that is needed is complete presence.