What sets monks apart from the rest of us is not an overbearing piety by a contemplative sense of fun. They know, as Trappist monk Matthew Kelty reminds us, that "you do not have to be holy to love God. You have only to be human. Nor do you have to be holy to see God in all things. You have only to play as a child with an unselfish heart."
I think the most essential thing in one's life is silence. What is silence? We think if we are quiet, we are silent. But we must come to silence without desire and wanting, otherwise we are not silent.