"Ten Minutes"
Jenna wasn’t broken, but something was off. Life was fine—stable job, okay apartment, decent relationships. But she moved through her days like she was following a script she never agreed to. Wake, scroll, work, scroll, eat, scroll, sleep. Repeat.
Michael Koukos
4/6/20252 min read
One night, doom-scrolling on her couch, she saw a short clip of an old woman in robes—calm face, steady voice.
“Sit still,” the woman said. “Just ten minutes a day. Don’t try to feel peaceful. Don’t try to figure anything out. Just sit and be still.”
Jenna paused. Then rolled her eyes. Then paused again.
The next morning, she set a timer for ten minutes, sat on her floor, and stared at nothing.
Day 1
She squirmed. Her back hurt. Her mind ran wild. Was this what “being present” felt like? Because it felt like crap.
She made it through, barely.
Day 5
By now she’d learned: the goal wasn’t to feel anything special. It was just to sit. No fixing. No scrolling. No achieving.
Something weird happened—when she stopped trying to get it “right,” the stillness felt… okay. Kind of honest. Kind of real.
Like herself, minus the noise.
Day 12
Jenna noticed she was less reactive. A co-worker made a passive-aggressive comment and she didn’t spiral. She still got annoyed, but it passed. She didn’t hold on.
And when she sat that evening, her thoughts were still a mess, but now she watched them like clouds. Not enemies. Not truths. Just passing things.
Day 22
Her sister asked what she was “into lately.”
“Nothing really,” Jenna said. “I just sit still for ten minutes every day.”
Her sister blinked. “Like, meditating?”
“No mantra. No deep breathing. Just sitting.”
“…Huh.”
Jenna shrugged. “It works.”
Day 35
She wasn’t blissed out. She still got irritated, insecure, restless. But she wasn’t always owned by those things anymore.
Sitting still had taught her this: you don’t need to chase clarity. Sometimes you just stop moving, and clarity shows up on its own. Or it doesn’t. And that’s fine too.
It wasn’t about becoming a new person. It was about making space to see the one who was already there.
Final Thought
Here’s the thing: if you sit still for ten minutes every day, your life won’t magically transform overnight. But over time, you’ll start to notice the space between your thoughts, the quiet under the noise, the you under all the trying.
So try it. Ten minutes. No apps. No hacks. Just sit.
And see what happens.