Reflections on finding peace
Once in a while, I love to channel surf for old movies. When I find a favorite, I’ll stop and watch it, no matter what point it is at. I do the same thing with books – I’ll just pick them up and start re-reading on any page. I always seem to find something that impacts me in a new way. Perhaps I simply didn’t “hear” it before, or perhaps where I am in my life causes me to pay more attention to certain parts.
I experienced this once again last weekend.
For the who-knows-how-many-times, I watched Field Of Dreams. One of the characters, Terrence Mann (played by James Earl Jones), shares this thought about the people who will pay to come see the baseball field in the cornfields of Iowa:
“For it’s money they have and peace they lack.”
He was making the point that people would actually pay to come back and enjoy a simple memory of childhood; playing baseball. So many of us grow up in search of money and success, and when we find it, we realize that we aren’t happy. We come to learn the truth in the adage, “money can’t buy happiness.” Success doesn’t bring peace. Being at peace is key to happiness, and we all seek that.
I also watched another movie called “The Wishing Well.” A big city reporter is sent off to a small town to write an article about a wishing well and why it is such an attraction. People toss a coin in a water well and make a wish. Why? Because there is something missing from their lives. For some reason, they are not at peace. The reporter learns from the townsfolk that there are two rules of the wishing well:
“You have to believe, and it has to be the right wish.”
It struck me that these two quotes are closely related. Part of what keeps us from experiencing peace in our lives is that we are seeking the wrong things, making the wrong wish. Wishing for things that aren’t important keeps us from finding peace. And, just wishing for things but not investing effort into them also keeps us from finding peace. It has to be the right wish.
Part three of a recent PBS documentary, This Emotional Life, was about rethinking happiness and how happiness helps
us find peace. Leading a rich, fulfilling, happy life is a desire we all share. Basic human contentment includes the need for love and companionship. Yet our fears, sadness and anger can stand in the way. The world is full of people experiencing the wide spectrum of poverty and riches, tragedy and triumph, illness and health, love and hate. Happiness can be found at any point in the continuum of these experiences.
There are as many ideas about peace as there are people.
Some believe that a positive attitude can bring personal peace in even the most tragic of circumstances. Some believe peace can only be found by placing one’s life in the hands of God. Others believe there is a psychological disposition that allows some people to be more content with 
their lot in life while others are never satisfied and therefore never happy, never at peace. Some believe that money can buy happiness, while others believe it absolutely does not. Others feel good physical health is the foundation for good mental health and having both leads to happiness. Still others believe that peace can be found by living in gratitude, in a place of thankfulness rather than desire.
I don’t believe that peace is found in happiness or lost in struggle.
I think that peace is the state of one’s heart and mind that acknowledges success and struggle as a part of life. One can be experiencing grief, but still be able to find peace. One can share in another’s great joy without losing their own sense of peace into jealousy or envy. Personal peace allows us to step back and see the lesson in the experience. Peace allows us to accept that that some wrongs of the past can’t be righted. Being at peace within ourselves also allows us to provide a space of real compassion for others, helping them find peace in their circumstance.
In my leadership classes at Otterbein College a couple years ago, we completed an exercise that led us to declare ourselves as the possibility of something. What do we bring to the world as a leader? What do we stand for?
My declared self was -and is- to be the possibility of peace through a compassionate heart.
I can help others find peace in their lives because they can find compassion in mine. It doesn’t mean we don’t have any challenges. It doesn’t mean we are happy all the time. It means we embrace life and all that it offers. Compassion shares a burden, provides understanding, and accepts joy. Compassion offers peace.
My previous post was a quote that hangs in my office. The words on it bear repeating:
peace.
it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.
How do you find personal peace in your life? How do you help others find peace in their lives?
Tags: Attitude, Compassion, Gratitude, Happiness, Life, Peace, Possibilities
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
