For the record, I’m not talking about peace on earth or about how to keep one person from hurting another person. No, I’m fairly certain that is far beyond my heavily-drugged-thanks-to-a cold state mind. I’m talking about how to find peace within oneself.
Again, reference the drugs from the first paragraph, but during a walk today I realized that my entire goal in life is to find peace of mind. I have it occasionally when all my projects are in a good place and there’s nothing worrying me. If you’re familiar with Getting Things Done Allan sometimes refers to it as being able to have a mind like water. The water and the mind merely flows to the thing that is most important at any given moment.
I love those moments in my life that my mind is at peace. My continuing and evolving love of nature assumes that those little creatures – the bunnies, birds and butterflies – are all at peace when they are out in the open eating, pecking or flying. They aren’t interested in hurting others or doing anything that has a negative impact. For me, that seems like nirvana.
Often with friends or those I’m comfortable with, I mention that my entire goal in life is to do nothing. The laugh and often get a little uncomfortable when I don’t really laugh with them. It’s my goal. Mind at peace. Do nothing.
There are pre-requisites before I can reach this point. While some philosophies suggest having nothing is part of the process, that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. No bailout here. We need money that’s in a safe location and a plan for making certain it doesn’t run out before we head to the light. I’ll go Forest Gump here – Lieutenant Dan said that we would never need to worry about money again. And that’s good. Once less thing to worry about.
The money will take work. And probably numerous days of not being at peace, which is okay. To get what we want, there has to be sacrifice. The sacrifice makes the reward so much better.
Ask the average trust fund baby how much appreciate their wealth – their ability to be free and have a peaceful mind. Assuming they speak to you at all, they probably won’t understand the question. No sacrifice; no appreciation.
Don’t confuse this for lazy – it’s having a reasonable goal with a plan. Moments of peace so that one can appreciate the wind, the rain and the things around us are rare – so why not strive for it?
This post brought to you by NiteQuil, the sniffles and some odd tasting medicine which had a faded label.
