Does it make sense to believe that we have to choose between either a high level of accomplishment, or peace and well-being?
On a societal level, we’ve been encouraged to think that’s the case. This is true to the point that most of us probably assume the only time we have a chance of experiencing peace and well-being is on the weekend, on vacation, or after we retire. In other words, when we’re not engaged in our everyday lives.
This belief would be true if peace and well-being came to us via the circumstances we find ourselves in. This is another societal assumption. If you’ve been taught to believe you have to do something or go somewhere to find peace and well-being, it will be difficult to recognize the peace and well-being you, like every human who has ever lived, were born with.
If your reaction to that last line is something like, “I’m not like other people; peace is foreign to me,” please keep reading. However much you may feel peace isn’t within your makeup, if that were the case, you’d be the first human ever born for whom that was true.
Peace and well-being are likely to be something you’re not used to experiencing because so many of us aren’t. In our hurried-up world, with our revved-up minds, it seems to make sense that peace is foreign to us, that feeling peaceful takes extraordinary measures. And in those instances when we’re able to experience a brief period of peace, we’re unlikely to appreciate that the source of our peace is internal, not external.
The long and short of it is this: our inherent peace and well-being can be covered up, but can never be destroyed. What could cover up peace and well-being? The lives we lead are always going too fast to the point where we’re always just a little bit ahead of ourselves. The result is we’re never really in our lives. In our minds, we’re always trying to live the future ten minutes, or two days, or three weeks from now.
Does it make sense that being that far ahead of ourselves, it can seem like there’s no peace to be found? Peace can only appear in this moment, not in the moment ten minutes or two days from now.
Remember when you were a little kid and ran so hard you got to the point where you were going faster than your legs could carry you? You may also remember how you felt when it became apparent you were going too fast and were out of control. That feeling is probably not far off from the way our lives feel to us. The difference is when we’re running faster than our legs can carry us, we recognize there’s a problem. When we’re going faster than our lives can carry us, we’re so used to it that it tends to be invisible to us.
Living this frantic way might make sense if we got more work of higher quality done, but we don’t. When we’re going too fast in our minds, and our actions, both our work and the quality of our lives are the casualties. That’s not to mention what happens to our ability to make sound decisions. Nothing will sabotage a decision more dependably than going faster than the speed of life.
My friend Joe Bailey wrote a lovely book called Slowing Down to the Speed of Life. The title says it. We can’t go faster than the speed of life and expect to enjoy the peace and well-being we were born with.
Peace and well-being are gifts that can’t be taken away from you. You’ll always have them, but the only way you can enjoy them is to stop running faster than your legs will carry you.
If you would like to know when The Slightly Older Person’s Guide to Graceful Aging comes out, please click here to put your name on the list. To read my other articles, click here.
