The 195 IQ (Blaise Pascal) quote that can change your life
If you let it…
All of humanity’s problems stem from their inability to sit quietly in a room alone
-Blaise Pascal
Quite a daring quote, isn’t it?
Let me start by introducing Blaise Pascal. Pascal was a french mathemetician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer, you name it. He was a child prodigy, early in his life and was gifted with an abundance of talents in his life. Pascal is the father of modern calculators and thus modern maths. He invented the unit of pressure known as the Pascal. He also had a reported IQ of 195.
So let’s take a journey through this quote, shall we?
When you open the outermost door of this quote, you find self-esteem and self-awareness. When you spend more time with yourself, you get to know yourself more. It is the same as spending time with anyone. When you want to know more about someone you talk to them and spend time with them. Well, the same is the case here, spend more time with yourself and develop more self-awareness. It is through this self-awareness that you reach the other aspects of what you can achieve. Self-esteem is developed through finding solace in yourself. Everyone likes to hang out with other people. This may be partly because we don’t feel that we are enough as we are. When you spend time alone, you find that you develop more and more self-esteem.
When you open the next door, you reach the far-awaited jewels of wisdom and decisiveness. This is achieved through self-awareness. When you reach a deeper level of yourself, you become wiser and wiser. You focus on self-improvement, and small things don’t seem to bother you anymore. You focus on what you really want which you figure out through such behavior. When there are no more distractions and external opinions you tend to do what you like rather than what others want you to do. You learn more about yourself and you become calmer and calmer.
There is a reason most geniuses liked solitude. They weren’t just simply gifted with a superior brain, they spent more time alone. The fact of the matter is they simply know themselves better than you know you. They are able to have their brain perform optimally because it is capable of that. The truth is, so can you. When you understand yourself at a deeper level, your body works at a more superior level.
Think of it this way, when there is a team with good chemistry, it will easily outperform the one with poor chemistry. Similar is the case here, intentional solitude gives you more time with yourself, this results in more chemistry within yourself, more unity. Thus, allowing you to outperform people who are unable to do this, which is most of the people in the world.
A study indicated that people would rather electrocute themselves than sit alone with their thoughts! People fear their own mind and the thoughts that come and go through them, so they don’t want to do it alone. They would much rather sit with other people than understand themselves better. I don’t mean to say sitting with other people is wrong, what I want to say is we should also schedule time with ourselves and take it seriously.
Finally, you reach calmness and the throne of self-fulfillment. This is the sought-after end product. The only fact is, this journey makes you improve in every way you can think of. It may be a long process, but it is certainly one worth running after.
So, next time you sit alone, cherish it. Don’t disturb it by turning on your mobile phone or watching a video. Just sit still, and do nothing!
