There are so many occasions in this internet age when I am asked to provide a log-in and a password.

Help is at hand on a lot of sites for the log-in to be saved so that you do not have to remember it.

It is tempting to take up the offer of a saved log-in but I never do, because it is my instinct to retain the memory of it by entering my details every time I need to access each site.

It takes that little bit of time longer to key the information in and also the need to overcome the frustration of entering the wrong log-in or password for the site I am accessing, thinking it is another, but in the end the discipline of having to type it in and remember it is worth it.

I often find that after a few days annual leave from work, I will pitch up at my desk and freeze momentarily as I struggle to recall my e-mail address, or name and the latest password that I have chosen to access my work station.

I think forcing myself to remember and use my log-in and rejecting the offer to have a saved log-in is quite akin to keeping up the daily exercises I now undertake to keep my life in the present.

These daily actions include a combination of periods of silence, reflection, inner inspection of self, physical exercise, blogging, sex (well not every day!), reading, journaling, writing my diary, prayer, attending Mass, making myself available to my family.

I know that when I let these exercises slip, I lose the connection which I have developed to self.

I run the risk of losing the control I now exert over my fears, and I run the risk of losing the control of my continuous work to be calm.

This work of being present, this work of being safe, this work of facing inward to self and increasingly outward to others is too important to  risking its loss to my life by treating it as if it was a saved log-in.

My next blog will be: Opposing Views

William Defoe