A Quiet Life Is Not an Unambitious One

My dearest Mermaid Darlings,

and all gathered here within the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There persists, in our modern clatter, a most curious misunderstanding: that a woman who lives quietly must surely live small.

That, unless she declares her progress aloud, broadcasts her labour, or hastens visibly toward her aims, she must be drifting—content with less, or resigned to a narrowing of her dreams.

I have found this notion to be entirely false.

A quiet life, when chosen with intention, is not the absence of ambition. It is ambition that has learned its own proper pace.

It is a life ordered not by urgency, but by discernment.

I did not stumble into quietness by chance, nor did I retreat into it through defeat. I arrived there deliberately, having learned—through trial, through sorrow, through experience—that a life need not shout in order to be significant.

As I grew more settled within myself, I noticed that my days required less display. The more securely I stood in my own knowing, the less I felt compelled to explain myself to the world at large.

In place of noise, I found discipline. Not the severe sort that scolds and drives, but the faithful sort that returns, day after day, to what matters.

Quiet work carries its own rhythm.

It keeps its appointments without fanfare.

It tends rather than performs.

In a quiet life, ambition does not disappear — it goes underground.

It shows itself in the returning to small practices, faithfully kept.

In the careful ordering of one’s home and hours.

In the patience to let ideas ripen privately before presenting them publicly.

In the choosing of consistency over spectacle, it is not a lesser ambition.

It is a stronger ambition — one that builds foundations instead of impressions.

Many fear quiet because it offers no immediate applause. Silence leaves room for reflection, and reflection requires honesty. Yet I have learned that when one no longer seeks constant confirmation, one discovers something far more sustaining: inner authority.

That authority steadies the hands, it calms the nerves and allows a woman to finish what she begins.

From such steadiness comes endurance — and endurance, my darlings, always outlasts excitement.

There is also a reverence within quiet living that deserves mention. To tend one’s life with care — one’s garden, one’s body, one’s work — is an act of stewardship. It resists haste. It honours what has been entrusted.

This, too, is ambition, not of immediacy, but of legacy.

A quiet life does not refuse growth.

It refuses chaos.

It does not disdain success.

It simply declines spectacle.

And it does not shun visibility —

it waits until visibility serves the work, rather than the ego.

I order my days with increasing simplicity now. Not because my dreams have shrunk, but because my discernment has sharpened. I no longer confuse motion with meaning, nor noise with progress.

Some of the most consequential work we shall ever do unfolds without witnesses.

And when the time comes for that work to be seen, it will not need to shout.

It will speak — clearly, calmly, and in its own hour.

A quiet life is not an unambitious one.

It is the life of a woman who knows precisely what she is building —

and feels no urgency to prove it before it is ready.

A Benediction for the Stillwater Soul and 
A Word for My Mermaid Darlings

May you never mistake quiet for absence,

nor steadiness for stagnation.

May your days be ordered with care, your labour met with patience, and your dreams allowed the dignity of ripening in their own season. May you trust the work done without witnesses,

the progress made without announcement,

and the life you are building, piece by faithful piece.

And may you remember, always, that what is tended with love endures.

If you find yourself drawn to a quieter way of living, do not fear that you are falling behind. You are not losing ground — you are laying it.

The world is loud with urgency, yet lasting things are rarely hurried. Attend to your days with care, return faithfully to what matters, and allow your life to speak in its own voice.

You are not late, nor overlooked.

You are becoming — and that, my dears, is more than enough.

If you wish to continue these quiet moments, you'll find me sharing them daily on Instagram. 

Most affectionately yours,

until my next enchanting swim, LR