“Wear the world like a loose garment.”

I read this title quote in my morning meditation recently. At first read, one might imagine this a directive to go through life not sweating the small stuff, to follow your inspiration with childlike ambition.

I actually think the meaning is deeper and more concrete.

What is “the world”? Growing up in church, I came to understand it to be the secular, anything not primarily done for God. This included a lot: sports, popular entertainment, science and academics, technology, politics, fashion, business, hobbies. All this being non-sacred—being “the world”—I learned that putting it before God was a form of idolatry.

Perhaps this lesson was offered to me in a manner too black and white for some—it was for me as a young adult. Yet I find myself coming around to its wisdom--regardless of religious affiliation--helping me avoid getting wrapped up in shallow, unstable matters.

All the areas of life listed above are defined by accomplishment, possessions, status, wealth, and power. They color our lives with variety, highlights, excitement, and value. They also detract, because their satisfaction is short-lived. And on the other side of them (their uglier halves) include feelings of failure, poverty, worthlessness, and hopelessness.

Rather, if we go through life seeing past or through the thinness of “the world”, of the ups and downs as gauged by these areas of life, and if we exercise a connection to that which is beyond and primary (however you define this entity or realm), we detach from the sways and hype and roller-coaster emotions rampant in the world.