How do I stay peaceful when I live in the middle of the world?

In order for us to have some emotional control and to live in a way that transcends the emotion, it's much like an athlete. We actually have to gear the circumstances of our life and our day around that stability. This is why we always start and end each day in prayer, because we need to stabilize ourselves for the bombardment of what is going on in the world. In fact, St John Chrysostom has this beautiful quote where he says, if you go to a monastery and you meet a monk and that monk is very peaceful, he says that's good, but that's what you expect, because they don't live in the world, they're kind of like a boat that's tied to the dock. But he says, if you find a priest who lives in the world amongst the waves and the cares of the world and yet remains peaceful, he says that's a true helmsman. It's somebody who is navigating the turmoil and the waves of life and all of the distractions, the difficulties that come at them, but they're able to navigate it in a spiritual way. They're able to kind of put themselves in a different frame of reference. Not one that's reactionary and psychological or emotional, but one that holds on to the presence of God, firmly rooted in prayer and watchfulness. We often think about prayer, but we seldom think about watchfulness, what the holy fathers call nepsis. Nepsis is the continual watchfulness over our thoughts and the inclinations of our heart, because our emotions, our thoughts, our anxieties, all of these things go back to an instant of thinking about something in the wrong way, or getting tripped up on a thought, or paying attention to it. We have to be able to constantly guard our attention, our focus, our emotional state, to remain prayerful, and to get rid of the thoughts that are constantly driving and drawing us away from that spiritual center.