Ego says,
"Once everything falls into place, I'll feel peace." Spirit says,
"Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place."
(Marianne Williamson)
I came
across this quote the other day, and it resonated with me, especially now after
many years of struggling to make work-related issues fall into place. Sometimes
they did, other times I hit the wall or fumbled the ball and had to come up
with new strategies. I kept thinking that once work issues were solved, I’d be
in a better place psychologically and then I could find peace of mind. I discovered that it didn’t work that way for me. Things didn't 'fall into place' (work out as I wanted) no matter how hard I tried to make them do so, and I had to learn a new way of being. Additionally, the idea that we can make things fall into place by exerting control over situations or people is an illusion
that is sold to us as sound advice over and over, in advice columns, self-help
books, via well-meaning colleagues and friends. We're often told that 'we choose our lives or the situations that happen to us'. That may be true at times, but it is not an absolute. People want the best for us--I
do believe that, at least the people who care about us. They mean well. But their
words cannot guarantee a desired outcome any more than can our attempts to control
that desired outcome. Things in life don’t
always fall into place; we can't mold life to suit our desires. We don’t always get what we want, when we want
it or how we want it, but we have to live
our lives anyway, dealing with the jumble of stressful feelings that the struggle
for control and order create in us.
Although we can hope that things will fall into
place, we cannot make them fall
into place. I think another way of saying this is ‘let go and let God’. In all
instances, the realization that we can have peace of mind without striving for full
control and order, is freeing and peaceful in and of itself. During the past
few years, I have rediscovered the joys of just being—something I was more in
tune with when I was a teenager--not always having something to do or
somewhere to be. When I am out walking in nature, I am with nature, looking and listening to the birds, watching the
clouds go by, enjoying the warm sunshine in the midst of winter. I don’t want
to be connected to social media; I don’t even need conversation sometimes. I
just want to be. I think that is
peace of soul and mind. When I find myself wondering or worrying about how situations are going to
turn out and what my role in them might be, I tell myself to let go and to take
a step back, so that I can view the situation from afar. It helps me maintain
perspective. Perspective helps me maintain objectivity, something that gets
lost when I get too involved in worrying about or trying to force the outcome
of a situation. Perspective gives me peace, and the odd thing is that when I feel
peaceful, I am much less concerned with the outcome of a particular situation,
perhaps because I realize that I do not have complete control over anything. There
is too much to obsess over in modern society, too much to chase, too many
goals, too many material things to distract us and
destroy peace, and too many interruptions. There is too little time for reflection, stillness and solitude. I want peace more now than I want any of the other things. At
this point in my life, peace is worth gold.
