The Fountains of Life

My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words … Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it … Keep your mouth free of perversity … Let your eyes look straight ahead … Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. Proverbs 4:20, 23-27

Isabela collapsed in the company parking lot. Her car keys fell from her trembling hand, and she stood there, leaning against the door, her chest heaving, unable to take another step. It was not a heart attack. It was something worse. It was absolute emptiness. At thirty-five, as a marketing director at a multinational corporation, she had achieved everything she dreamed of. And she felt dead inside. The official diagnosis was Burnout Syndrome.

The doctor gave her three months’ leave and a piece of advice: “You need to reconnect with what really matters.”

The first few weeks were a blur of sleep and apathy. Her world, previously governed by goals, deadlines, and meetings, was now a deafening silence. That was when she found an old diary of her grandmother’s. On the first page, written in elegant handwriting, was the passage from Proverbs 4: “Above all else, guard your heart…”

Those words, which she had heard in childhood, sounded different. They were a more accurate diagnosis than the doctor’s. She realized that her exhaustion was not just professional; it was spiritual. Her fountains of life had dried up. And, with the help of a Christian therapist, she began the journey of identifying the leaks.

The therapist asked her to list what she “consumed” daily. Isabela realized that her heart was a funnel open to the anxiety of the market, the envy of others’ achievements on LinkedIn, the bitterness of corporate rivalries, and the constant fear of not being good enough. She did not guard her heart; she allowed it to be a repository of toxic waste. Her first task was a “clean-up”: she stopped following profiles that caused her distress, cut off toxic conversations, and began filling her mornings not with emails, but with prayer and reading.

The therapist’s second question was equally impactful:

“How do you speak about your work and your colleagues?”

Isabela realized that her language was dominated by sarcasm, complaining, and gossip. She united people around criticism, not encouragement. As part of her healing, she set herself a challenge: to go an entire week without complaining about anything or anyone. It was excruciating at first, but gradually, she felt her internal environment calm down.

Her therapist noticed that she lived by dwelling on past mistakes: “I should have done that project differently,” or paralyzed by future anxiety: “What if I don’t hit the target next quarter?” Her spiritual eyes were crossed, never focused on the present. The task was to practice daily gratitude, forcing her eyes to see what was in front of her today: her son’s smile, the warmth of the sun, a tasty meal.

The final step was to re-evaluate her daily choices. She realized that her “feet” were taking her down paths that drained her energy. The sleepless nights working on projects no one had asked for, the networking lunches with people who exhausted her, the refusal to take vacations for fear of seeming “replaceable.” She began to make deliberate decisions: leaving the office on time, scheduling quality time with her family, saying “no” to commitments that did not align with her new values. She was, literally, ordering her steps.

At the end of the three months, Isabela was a changed woman. She had not found a magic solution, but a new set of disciplines. She returned to work, but not in the same way. She delegated more, trusted more, controlled less. Her team, which once feared her, began to admire her. Her productivity, paradoxically, increased.

One afternoon, a colleague, seeing her leaving on time, commented:

“You look different, Isa. Lighter. What’s the secret?”

Isabela smiled, a genuine smile she had not displayed in years.

“No secret,” she replied. “I just learned to guard the source. The rest is a consequence.”

She got into her car, no longer feeling the weight of the world, but the lightness of a heart that was being well-guarded. The fountains of life, once dry, began to flow again.

(Made with AI)

This story is part of my book Everyday Wisdom

https://books2read.com/u/3knogL