A while back a friend of mine commented on how busy I was. “No!” I protested. “I’m a simple man of peace!”

They laughed, long and loud.

That bothered me.

More than it should have, perhaps, but it started me thinking that it would be good to create little havens of simplicity in my life. That’s how S.T.O.P. was born – “Simple Time of Peace” – and it’s become a regular ritual for me, every couple of months or so. Yes, it involves unplugging, and yes, it involves cutting yourself off from the tyranny of the clock – and those can be scary.

But I can tell you that all the things I thought were going to be hard to adjust to turned out to be pretty easy, and the benefits from the S.T.O.P. lasted far beyond the weekend retreat.