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Proverbs 21:19 · World English Bible

Proverbs 21:19 Meaning It Is Better to Dwell

It is better to dwell in a desert land, than with a contentious and fretful woman.

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What does Proverbs 21:19 mean?

There are two companions the mind can keep, and this is a choice between them, not between places or people. To dwell with contention is to make a home with the ego, the voice that is never at peace, that finds a grievance in everything and calls the finding love.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 21:19 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

There are two companions the mind can keep, and this is a choice between them, not between places or people. To dwell with contention is to make a home with the ego, the voice that is never at peace, that finds a grievance in everything and calls the finding love. A mind wearied by that voice would rather have nothing than have more of it, and the bare wilderness begins to look like rest. But the wilderness here is only the first step away, the willingness to leave the quarrel behind.

The real choice is not between strife and emptiness. It is between the teacher of anger and the teacher of peace, and the mind is free to change teachers the moment it tires of the war.

Contentious and angry woman: the ego's voice within the mind, the inner companion of grievance that turns every meeting into a case Wilderness: the quiet apart from the ego's noise, the emptiness a mind chooses when it can no longer bear the quarrel

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 21:19 today

  1. When the running complaint starts up in your head on the commute, name it as just a voice, not the truth, and let the radio or the road have your attention instead.
  2. Mute the group chat or thread that leaves you irritated every time, and go do one quiet thing you actually like.
  3. In a meeting that turns into grievance collecting, feel the pull to join in, and pick the calmer voice instead, even if it means you say nothing.

Which voice have I been letting run the house, and what would I do if I stopped listening to it?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · Dhammapada

No enemy can harm you as much as your own untrained mind, and no friend can help you as much as a trained one.

Stoicism · Epictetus

You cannot choose what happens, but you can choose the voice you listen to about it, and that choice is where your freedom lives.

Sufism · Rumi

The house of the heart has many guests. Which one you seat at the table decides what kind of night it will be.

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