Tag: peace

Peace in your battles

HarkrishanLeave a comment

It’s been a while but today I am thinking about peace. And how we get to it.

Have you ever looked at someone and wondered how they’re keeping it together when you’re falling apart? In our relentless pursuit towards success, a job, financial goals and whatnot, how do we find peace? When do we find peace?

The battles we face are never-ending. You will never have everything entirely sorted exactly how you want it. If you did, honestly there wouldn’t be anything to live for. But lucky for us, we do have our battles. With school, work, friends, family, health or even with ourselves. And don’t be fooled, that person who you think is doing so well, is facing something too. They aren’t perfect and if you wish you could have their life, it would simply replace your battles, not put an end to them.

So where does peace fit in all this?

If you ask me, right in the middle. Of every battle. Of every week. Of every day.

You have to find peace in your battles.

I sometimes look at everything that is going on and my to-do lists. Daily lists and life goals list. And I just put them down and take a walk. I get tired of waiting for battles to end and peace to come, so I create it when I need it. And yes, I could spend that time continuing to struggle so I can finish sooner or do better. But, what is the point? I’m never going to be done.

So, you either sit around waiting for a 2-day break between work projects when you can hike, eat or hang out or you find peace within those battles. I see it as separating yourself from your conflict. You are not your conflicts. What happens in the world around you is merely happening to you. It is not you. This is perhaps one the most liberating thoughts I have ever come across. In the midst of a bad week, it helps me find peace. Peace to me is reading, walking, volunteering at Toastmasters and catching up with those I care about.

Here’s a simple example – going to sleep. How often do you go to sleep stressed because of how your day went? Or thinking about all the work you have to do tomorrow? Feel free to lie to me, but respect yourself enough to admit it internally. And how does that help? You carry your battles to bed and it affects how much you sleep, how well you sleep and overall, your health. In carrying on with your battles at a time meant for peace, you harm your capacity to continue the struggle tomorrow.

Peace isn’t what you’re fighting for. It’s not the end result and it’s not your trophy for finishing first. Rather, it can be your path once it is ingrained in your process. So find peace in your battles. In your weeks. In your days.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Buddha

To expect or not

Harkrishan2 Comments

Expectation is the thief of joy. It is the root of all heartache. Some well-known people came up with these quotes and with good reason, I have learned. But it is so easy to expect, is it not?

How that interview will go? How an exam will go? How that date will go?

We tend to attach expectations to many parts of our lives. It becomes an involuntary reflex at one point. We unconsciously weave our expectations into our minds and conversations. And why? Simply because we wish for things to go our way.

We want that job, that high grade, that good night kiss.

It’s entirely human and I don’t fault anyone for expecting a certain outcome. But, I must concur that it does often lead to heartache. It is a simple truth we choose to ignore. That we expect something, and we might just get something else. The heartache comes when we pin all our hopes on something working out. When the possibility of it not going our way is too painful to bear. Have you ever held such unrealistic expectations of yourself? Or of someone else? How did that go?

To me, it sounds like such a burden. To pray for a certain path and be in fear and dread of another, with no way of knowing which you’ll have to take. And that sorrowful statement raises the question: to expect or not?

I favor the latter. Don’t expect. To get that job. To get that grade. Or to get that good night kiss.

Try having faith instead.

Try believing that whatever the outcome is, things will work out for you. No matter which path you are forced to take, you will find your way. Faith has carried me through some of the hardest moments of my life. I knew things could easily go wrong, so I had faith that no matter what happened, I’d still make it. That I’d still be standing at the end of the day, ready to face the next.

I am not preaching religion here. I am not much for religion myself. This can be something entirely different. This can replace the dread of an outcome with the assurance of recovery. It is simply, the hope that everything happens for a reason. And that whether we can understand it or not; whether we can appreciate it or not; it is leading us through our journey.

Faith is not easy. You may still be put down by what falls in your hands. But faith provides a way forward. More than anything, it brings peace. Imagine a life where whatever is to come tomorrow doesn’t bother you today. You are at peace with yourself because it will be alright. You can appreciate today for all it holds. And you will find your way through tomorrow, regardless of what it has in store for you.

Like I said, try having faith!

As it is

HarkrishanLeave a comment

Change is the only constant. I miss the days when this meant simpler things like transitioning from high school to university or finally moving out of your parents house to start a new life of your own. Such changes are so common that we’ve made our peace with them. We know that they must happen and only a handful try to resist these natural changes.

When it was my time to leave home, I made peace with the fact that it was an important change for me. I was to gain an education, learn to be independent and start my journey. Keeping all these things in mind, I went with the flow and let the waters take me where they may. I’ll admit, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows but then, change never is. We just need to accept it, the good and bad included. Now, this was an example of a change we all look forward to. I know that someday I’ll move from being a student to a working individual. I might re-locate in the course of a job. And after a few decades of service, I’ll retire. These are all changes that we can anticipate and often prepare for. And once you make those transitions, you simply be at peace with the happenings and let the waters flow as they may.

But what about those unprecedented changes we can’t see coming? A pandemic, maybe?

How is the world supposed to cope with everything that has happened? I won’t go on to list all the things that aren’t the same, but we all have some idea of what these are. These were the changes we never saw coming. But now they’re here. I can’t fly home for the summer. And it’s inconvenient and downright unfair. I have half a mind to rant and rage against everything that isn’t what it used to be. Some might even advocate to bring life back to what used to be “normal”. Somewhere in my heart, though, I know that this might be the new normal. The change has happened and our minds want us to fight the flow because it’s all new un-chartered territory.

Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.

Wayne Dyer

I think it’s time we stopped resisting and waiting for things to go back to normal. I’m tired of being angry at a virus. This is what it is. Just go with the flow.