PEACE

Living in peace is my choice.

Some of my life I have lived with drama and fed off it and been eaten alive by it. Some of my life I have lived in darkness, mentally incapable of pulling myself out and there is no peace there. Some of my life I have lived in sadness and longing. I don’t think I am unusual. I believe most people’s lives have all or most of these components if one lives long enough and endures each of them in order to move on to something else. Not always something better, but something else. Peace is hard to find if your mind is at war with your body. It is hard to find if your morals are at war with your desires. It is very hard to find if you are in pain either physically or mentally.

I have also lived much of my life in happiness and peace.

I have found now that acceptance is the basis for my own personal peace. It really is that simple for me. I live relatively physically pain free. I am blessed. I also live primarily mentally free of pain; again blessed. But I know that even when one or the other of these invades my life, it is temporary and if I can DO something to make it less painful, I do it. I just do it. If not, then I accept that I cannot fix or change it and I ACCEPT it. Truly and completely accept it. That means that I live WITH it. I do not live in spite of it or because of it. I live with it. I make it part of my thinking, part of my actions and accept that for this day, at least, I will have to live with pain of some kind. I will not allow it to control me or be what I am about; instead, I will live my life, my way with the pain in the background. If the pain keeps me from being as physical as I’d like to be, I’ll just be less physical until it passes. If it is mental pain that is trying to take me over, I will remind myself of all the blessings in my life, grieve or ache or whatever for a short time and then live with it. Live my life with smiles and laughter and love because the pain cannot take that away; it is who I am. I am happy, I laugh, I smile a lot and I enjoy life. This is how I have peace in my mind.

Peace in the world is possible, but highly unlikely because it requires people to be nonjudgmental and accept others as they are. Our own morals or beliefs will never be everyone’s and for many people that is unacceptable. Peace requires that be acceptable. I pray for world peace. I pray for war to be something in our history that my grandchildren would read about and understand that dying for a principle or dying to spread democracy may never again be necessary, but instead a lesson learned. Allowing others to live by their own standards and their own beliefs means we stop going to war to protect our freedom because no one will be trying to take it away. I know that is a pipe dream, but I continue.

Peace in my life means I cannot judge others. Is that difficult? It was. It isn’t now. I have come to understand that my beliefs work for me. I know that my moral conduct works for me. It isn’t necessary that everyone agree with me. I can completely love someone who believes nothing close to what I believe. I can love the person for who they are, not what they believe. I can respect someone who is on the complete opposite side of absolutely everything I think is right because that isn’t who they are, it’s what they believe. It is none of my business. I can discuss our differences without becoming defensive, or offensive. It’s good for me to hear both sides or all sides of a subject and I enjoy doing that, but I do not enjoy arguing or fighting or taking a stand or drawing a line in the sand or whatever, so I will often just bow out of a conversation if it is going that way. Religion, Politics or Morals are all subjects about which I have an opinion, but I will not engage in arguments to defend my thoughts. I simply respect the opposite view and move on to something else.  This is how I have peace in my life.

Besides praying for good health and happy thoughts, I also pray for everyone in my life to have peace of mind and a quiet heart. Know, my dear and precious readers, I wish this for each of you. 

The old hippy in my sends you peace and love!

Jo