Draw a Breath, Not a Line

Life is much simpler than you think

Mitch Ditkoff
2 min readMar 22, 2023
Photo by Fabian Møller on Unsplash

Throughout history and even last Thursday, inner-directed people on the so-called “spiritual path”, have had a tendency to perceive the world as “maya” — the fancy Sanscrit name for “illusion.”

I used to feel this way a lot.

Back in the early days of my adolescent quest for meaning, I had a curious habit of drawing lines in the sand. On one side of the line was the “inner life” — the place where God lived (or if not lived, at least vacationed). On the other side of the line was “the world.” You know — the laughable detritus of life on planet Earth: shopping malls, money, politics, ego, relationships, organized religion, high school geometry, taxes, Frosted Flakes, and anything I didn’t understand, agree with, or like.

Somehow, it made me feel good to draw these lines — not unlike the way Democrat and Republican spin doctors strut their stuff on CNN after each political debate.

Well… I would like to take this early morning blogospheric moment to humbly apologize to all of those whose lives I somehow judged by my habitual line-drawing behavior.

I see things differently now — kind of like that old Zen story…

Two young monks, one fine day, found themselves existentially arguing over whether it…

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Mitch Ditkoff

Co-Founder of Idea Champions and Face the Music. Author of Storytelling for the Revolution, Storytelling at Work, Unspoken Word and Free the Genie. Human being