You Don’t Have to Think

By Steve Taylor

You don’t have to think.
You don’t need to anticipate before you act.
and provide a running commentary while you’re acting
then replay your actions afterward
at the same time as watching and critizing
the actions of others.

You don’t have to argue with yourself
about events that dissolved away decades ago
or resurrect ancient humiliations
that can still inflame you with hurt and hatred.
You don’t have to weave imaginary worlds
where you can satistfy your secret desires.

You don’t have to watch helplessly from the side
while your mind whirls away
creating unnecessary discord
and wasting precious energy.

You don’t have to think
except when thought is necessary
when you need to bring your conscious mind to bear
to deliberate, analyze, or organize
or to let your imagination drift
allowing ideas and insights to emerge
from the undercurrents of your consciousness.

Thought should be a tool
we can pick up when needed, then lay down again,
leaving us undisturbed.

Otherwise there is no need for thought
to disturb the natural stillness of your mind
to dilute the purity of experience
to distort reality through interpretation
to confuse the present with the past
and interfere with the impulses that gently flow
from the silent part of you, which knows
better than you think you do.

– Steve Taylor
From The Calm Center: Reflections and
Meditations for Spiritual Awakening
New World Library, 2015
p. 44

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Become the Sky
• The Smile
• “Window, Mind, Thought, Air and Love”
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind/a>
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• Returning the Mind to God
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Cultivating Stillness
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• The Source Is Within You
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Until the Light Returns
• What the Wind Says
• Secret Language of the Heart
• Kahlil Gibran on Self-Knowledge

Image: At Pelican Lake, Glenwood, MN – Saturday, August 15, 2026. (Photo by Mackenzie Timmerman)