Peace in the Everyday

Sometimes I wonder how much of our lives are spent in the pursuit of peace and whether it’s something we can actually find in this life.

I think for most of my life, I believed that the path to peace was in getting what I wanted.  When I was a kid, those things were simple.  I wanted fun toys, good food, time to play, and love.  Predictably, as I got older, what I wanted changed.  I wanted friends, money, cool clothes, love, and time to play.

I think that’s about when I started to lie to myself about what I actually believed brought peace.  Once I entered early adulthood, I never would have said that peace came from getting what I wanted.  I would have told you that peace could only be found through achievement.  I needed the best grades, most friends, most attractive look.

Around this time is also when anxiety started to form its deepest roots in my soul.  I started to believe that peace could only be found in being perfect.  Not only did I believe that I needed certain things for peace, but I also believed that I had to be certain things to have peace.  The more I strove for perfection, the more I realized just how far away I was from it.  I would see friends who would study longer and look more polished, friends who had the latest gadgets and the most interesting boyfriends. I believed that I would only find peace if I could have and be all of those things, but the more I tried, the more anxious I became.  As usually happens in life, this hit a boiling point and my life seemed to have imploded.  I spend half my time striving for perfection and the other half just trying to stay busy because any amount of time to think would send me into emotional turmoil.

Throughout the process of healing from that debilitating anxiety, I thought I had changed my definition of peace.  I started seeing peace as being the result of integrity and living out my values.  I saw that I needed to be okay with myself in order to find peace, and I started to realize that being okay with myself had nothing to do with how I acted, what I looked like, or what I achieved.  It was about how I conceptualized all of these things.

That was a leap in the right direction; however, I still lacked peace most of the time.  So obviously if peace is something that can be found or achieved, I still had something wrong.

The priest at church today was talking about peace.  He was saying that peace comes from the unity of our desires.  I had a hard time following exactly what he meant, but he seemed to be saying that peace comes from uniting our will with the will of God.  That sounds good, but how do I make that a part of my life especially when I am just now beginning to work on developing the spiritual strength to wish God’s will in all things?

And it got me thinking about the times I feel the least peace.  I’m a stay at home mom, so perhaps those times are pretty obvious – when the dog poops on the carpet and Magoo is wining about wanting more milk at the same time the Goose is searching out every electrical wire and outlet she can possibly find in what seems to be a concerted effort to try to electrocute herself.  And moments like these account for about 85% of my day, so needless to say, I don’t find much peace.

And during these times, I slip into an old and bad habit of blaming circumstances for how I feel.  Yes, these can be frustrating times, but I don’t believe all people get as frustrated by them as I do, and I know that sometimes I get more frustrated than others.  And that makes me think that perhaps my problem is in what I am trying to achieve.

I am aiming for control during these times.  I want things calm.  I want to be able to cuddle on the couch with the girls and read some books, preferably without 950 questions about the motives of every character.  I want the dog to lie peacefully on the floor, and I want my house to be completely clean.  In other words, I want everything to conform to my desires, and I spin out of control when they don’t.

But maybe it would work better if I instead try to align my goals to that of my reality.  Yes, it is important to have standards, but it’s also important to just simply accept.  I have two kids under four.  I probably will not have very many days where everything is quiet and clean.  There will be poop and spilled soup and avocado filled faces and fists.  There will be tears (theirs and mine.)  There will be whining (again, theirs and mine.)

But that’s my life.  That is what life is like with small children.  If I really learn to believe and accept that, then perhaps the peace I seek won’t be so elusive.

And I guess that’s what brings me back to what Monsignor said at mass today.  Peace isn’t about having everything we want and being everything we want.  It’s about accepting a will greater than ours.  Accepting that where we are is where we are meant to be.  It’s about making the best out of the situations we are given.  It is about determining the direction we want our life to go in, and it’s about creating effective plans to get there, but it’s also about saying okay when things don’t work how we want them to or when people don’t do what we want them to.  Obviously, some times and some situations will be easier than others.

So I have made this vow of acceptance before with varying levels of success, but today I am recommitting myself to it.  And maybe it will bring me some of the peace that I seek.

What do you think?  What do you think the key to lasting peace is?  Is it possible to even find peace?