Personal Peace Part 1 of 4: Peace Cannot be Purchased

As evidenced through the media, our culture doesn’t really promote healthy feelings about ourselves.  I’ve determined that this world is a rough, demanding, and unsafe place, and consequently it is easy to feel insecure, discontented, and dissatisfied. Sadly, it’s all about the vanity of deficiencies: what I don’t have, what I lack, what I’m missing, who’s winning, and why I am not.   All of this competition leads to feeling anything but peaceful.

It’s been said that we become like those things we admire.  By placing our values on the wrong things we become disillusioned.  For as long as I can remember, owning things has been promoted as the goal for feeling successful and fulfilled.  Having access to lots of money is sold as the ultimate objective of life.  The problem with this type of reasoning is that we never own enough of anything.  The average person has lost perspective of what is truly important.  Money is not a substitute for security, control is not a substitute for safety, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.  Personal peace cannot be purchased. 

“How do you want to create peace if there is no peace inside yourself?”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 - )

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