Peace is Priceless

After many years of wrestling with this, I have finally concluded that peace is priceless. No amount of money, accolades or accomplishments can beat having peace. To get up each day knowing that the smallest thing will bring you joy is peace. A job you love may be hard and you may make mistakes but each day you want to work, you want to challenge yourself to do your best for that day. That is peace. To feel the freedom to be yourself, your true authentic self that is peace. No one has predetermined your worth or has decided they know who you are but are willing to concede that there are layers to you, that is peace. When you can sleep a deep deep sleep and wake up knowing you are ready for the day, that is peace.

It seems that finding peace is harder than it seems. Many of us can only grudgingly sing: “When peace like a river attendeth my way when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul”. No, it is not well with my soul, because people have a way of imposing themselves and their expectations on you and making your life a living hell. In hell, let me remind you there is no peace, joy or contentment. So earth becomes hell because when you try to reach beyond your means and the expectations of others the chains imposed seem to strangle you, rip the breath from you and smack you to your knees. But you look around and people still expect you to function and not malfunction but they are your malware.

We are too hard on ourselves and too hard on each other. But society tells us this is okay and so we have vampirous leeches in the form of each other, who suck and tug the air breathe. So, going back to peace; it can only be achieved when we say no to unfounded expectations and the violations from the expectations we seek from questionable sources. Peace is necessary but elusive in a world that glorifies wars. We feel alive when we wage war, how ironic because war means certain death. We are not satisfied with the mundane, where peace resides. No, we have to reach past the safe and choose violence instead. Do you see how hard it is for peace to permeate? I spent all paragraphs on violence, conflict and oppression.

Peace is priceless. It is better to have peace than riches but society says to get it at any cost, even your peace of mind. Society is not satisfied with letting you be, it tries to fix you until your insides become your outside and your outside disappears. Again, I have digressed from extolling the virtues of peace. Even in these few words is little evidence of peace. But best believe, peace is priceless.