The Road to Peace

Healing, peace, and happiness. Are these not the things that most are searching for? So often we drift through life searching for these things. Some try to find peace and happiness through tangible, material objects, grasping at trying to keep up with the Joneses, thinking if we were just like them, had all the things they have, that somehow happiness will be found, only in the long run to realize that they have been grasping at sand and left with bills to show, and discover that the Joneses down the street were not really that happy after all. It is easy to hide behind the mask of materialism.

Some grasp at their fading beauty, defined by advertisers and Hollywood. Others seek love and peace through failed relationships, desperately trying to fill a void within. Still others may bully their way through life, trying unsuccessfully to make themselves feel bigger and better.

The reality is that no matter how hard we try, no matter how far we run, no matter how much we spend, how much we deny, we cannot escape ourselves. We cannot escape our past, we cannot escape our failures, we cannot escape the wrongs that have been done to us. We cannot escape missed opportunities or lost loves. Nor can we change some defining factors, such as a death of a loved one, a family member with a chronic illness or a child with special needs. It is all apart of our unique experience in this life.

Life keeps moving forward. We are then standing at a crossroad where we can decide to move with life or keep standing still, which is really moving backwards, or, continue to battle the things we cannot change.

Perhaps the key to finding peace is to find acceptance in some of the fixed things that are out of our power to change. That is not to say we do not do all that we can to ensure a chronically ill child, for example, finds relief or that we do not fight for a cure and fight to make sure the doctors are listening, but to accept some things are out of our power to FIX.

We can choose to reject what advertisers claim beauty is, and reclaim the beauty in ourselves, treating our bodies kindly and healthy, and let the light within shine through.

We can choose to stop comparing ourselves to the people around us and stop placing value on the amount of things we have. We can choose to see the humanity in each other, and choose to see the value in ourselves.

In addition to acceptance, perhaps also the road to peace within includes letting go. Oh how we humans like to hold on to past hurts, regrets, etc. How are we to continue walking down this road of life, carrying a heavy load of past burdens, adding daily to this baggage? That is a pretty tough thing to do, especially when climbing through the valleys and mountains of life. So maybe we need to look deep within, acknowledge what it is that has weighed us down, take a deep breath, and simply.....accept it and let it go. Learn from it. Change what we can in the future. Forgive ourselves, forgive others...even if they are not repentant. I realize this is not an easy feat. It is a process, a process I am still trying to accept and implement myself.

Life is too short to allow ourselves to be hung up on so many things. Life is too short to keep degrading our value as a person by comparing ourself to society's misguided standards. Life is too short to allow fear to stand in the way of our dreams.

We must embrace life, the good and the bad.

Life most certainly is a journey.....make the most of it while you can.