Choosing Peace Over Paradise
Choosing Peace Over Paradise !!!
This is a pretty bold statement, right? Many people seem to think so. If asked, people, within seconds, will always choose paradise over peace. It is not actually their fault, as many people don’t even know what is peace or paradise. They are just living by the definitions of peace and paradise which we taught them in schools.
People make quick decisions based on their basic instincts. But what if I told you that your basic instincts are not actually yours. Yes! Your basic instincts are just thoughts or rules which you have been listening from the mouths of people around you. The thoughts of our surroundings always influence us humans. Since birth, we keep hearing the benefits of being rich, living a luxurious life, having a lot of assets and blah.. blah….. This affects us in a way that we decide things based on other people’s life goals or statements.
But, what if I tell you about a Girl, who chose Peace over Paradise, Modesty over a Luxurious Life & Mountains over the Expensive Beach Life ?
The girl we are going to talk about today is Olivia. You don’t need to know much about her name or place. Just know this, she knows I am writing about her and she is going to read this before you. I really hope she likes this story and hopefully, you guys like it too, read the story easily and calmly.
Olivia was a rich girl from a great city in North America. She and her mother had a glorious business of their own. They have 6 members in their family. Olivia is very good in business, she was the primary reason of the boom of their business. She was rich, successful, healthy, wealthy, respected and loved. This is what we call a paradise, right ?
But nowadays, Olivia is out somewhere, where there are no business meetings, no deal discussions, no butlers or maids in her house. She doesn’t have much money right now; she is working tables everyday just to arrange her dinner. She does not have much friends there, although; she joined a hiking group there; she says she goes on a hike twice a month.
Olivia’s life right now —
She isn’t always able to arrange herself a good meal. She is living in a small room on the top of some old and creaky building. She is again having back problems. She thinks she also may have got some foot infections now. She doesn’t have much grocery at her place. But she seems satisfied about her work at the restaurant, she says — “It is the easiest money I have ever made in my life. I enjoy working there, I take pride in being a server there”. She says the rainy season there is the worst, the room is all leaky and damp when it rains. She sarcastically says — “The flush also works, 6 out of 10 times”.
When I asked more about her condition there, she became sad and awkward. But then I asked her the big question —
Why not go back to your city, your business & your luxurious house ?
I asked her — “Why don’t you go back home, where you have a stable business, a mom, a family, money, a beautiful home which has a well functioning flush and?”. I asked her to tell me the real reason of living in the mountains, when she could have a life every American only dreams of.
And She Says —
Living a rich, crowded and luxurious life is okay, but it doesn’t really make you happy. Money is an infinite value, the more you earn, the less it seems. Luxury is a cursed feeling, the more you get, harder the actual life becomes. Stability is a textbook word, which was made to limit ourselves to boundaries that should not exist.
She said — “The Real Life Lies Within Peace”
She says —
They have taught us that money and luxury are the primes of human life. But believe me, they aren’t. I say this because I had lived in the so called ‘Paradise’ for the better part of life, but the word is itself insufficient in expressing the veritable paradise of life i.e. ‘Peace’.
If we go out on the road right now, and ask 100 people to give a definition of paradise, 90 of them will give a long list of wishes they have, or some worthless goals which they have set for themselves to achieve in their long life span. It sounds foolish when we think of this as this, people set their own standards or goals, and spend their entire life chasing them, like it is mandatory to complete them.
But, if we go out on the road, and ask a 1000 people to give a definition of peace or mindfulness, hardly 10 of them will answer, that too from some textbook definition. People think peace is some quiet room or a meditation program which they can buy or arrange for themselves every morning. ‘ Peace is pure as the individual himself ’. You cannot achieve or get peace from somewhere. Know the peace within yourself.
I wish I could tell you any different. The life people dream of, the life people think is good for them, it isn’t. The so called ‘paradise living’ destroys a person’s real capabilities of exploring real life values and goals.
Being peaceful is a great attitude. We have so much to be grateful for. Thank the taxi driver for bringing you home safely, thank the cook for a wonderful dinner, and thank the guy who cleans your windows. Also, thank the mailman for bringing you your mails, thank the police officer for making your place safe, and thank God for being alive.
Peace is like an energy that we can not store. It will get out anyway. If you prevent your energy from flowing, it will find another way to express itself. If you do not follow your own energy, your intuition, if you swim against the stream of your own flow, energy will express itself in sickness, tiredness, depression, skin diseases, temper tantrums, aggressiveness and other not so pleasant things.
Nowadays, it has become very hard to be in a peaceful state of mind. The world is full of chaos and disturbances. You cannot be peaceful by closing yourself in a quiet room. The real is world like an enormous wardrobe. Everybody has their own costume. There is only one that fits you perfectly. As long as you try to be someone else, you are walking around with a costume that is too small or too big for you. You don’t feel comfortable in it. And what else is, you “stole” a costume that belongs to someone else! That means you are not at the right place doing the right thing with the right people! You took someone else’s place, someone else’s costume! This is the reason I don’t want to go back to my home. I don’t want to fit in someone’s costume and think that this paradise is good for me.
I wish I could say that I miss the time when I was in a Paradise, but I don’t. People actually don’t know what peace can do for a person, being peaceful in oneself is like being in control of your surroundings to an extent which has no boundaries.
Peace, so beautiful, this concept! All we have to do is to do what we love in our soul! And of course we need to stop once for all to think we don’t deserve happiness or wealth or health. All these thoughts are wrong because they go against the principles of creation of the Universe. We are already wonderful! We are loved, We are already rich! We are already free! We are already intelligent! We are already healthy! We are already a paradise from within! We just have to see it.
There is a lot of peace around you to help you take a positive turn in your life. Don’t think you can do nothing. You handle your life now. Make your choice! Know that every thought you think is the one which will weaken you, or one which will make you feel stronger. Your peace will make you feel invincible and unstoppable in the face of universe and within your soul too.
In a search for happiness, many people look for it in other people and not within ourselves. Many people feel things like money, a better job, better relationships..etc will make them happy. In reality, to find true contentment you must look inside yourself and learn to be your own best friend, be at peace with your achievements in life. That means you have to trust, love, and care for yourself just as you do the people & things you consider being close or important to you.
Hey! It’s me again, I hope you didn’t forget about me while listening to Olivia.
Now, like you guys, I also had some questions to ask her, like —
- Why come to mountains? You could’ve gone anywhere.
- Why not ask your mom for some money? You were the one who helped her earn that money.
- You are qualified, why not get a better-paying job here itself ?
- And how is this kind of hardship, struggle and suffering is any better than living in that paradise ?
I asked her these questions, and she laughed. She said — “You already know the answers to all these questions, you just want me to spell them out for you. It’s really fine, because we humans always need affirmations or conformations from our surroundings”.
I nodded at first, but then we both laughed a lot. I asked her to tell how peace could help her deal with all the hardships she was facing there.
She Said —
I really don’t need any of those luxuries to be peaceful. Yes, it is hard to make a living here, but this is actually the fun part, I never knew that I am so good at working tables, backpacking and hiking, or even cleaning the wet floors of my room. I also fixed my neighbor’s computer recently, which is pretty mad considering we had people to repair our computers back in my business days. Living here on my own gives me a satisfaction that I am not just a businesswoman, I am also a basic American who strives day and night just to get a arrange dinner tonight.
I chose the mountains because they are huge; I get a feeling that I can hide behind them, but I can climb and conquer them as well. This is the real peace which I want, imagine having something in your life which is powerful yet useful for you. These mountains are my hideouts and my achievements.
People look for unreal achievements in their life, that is why, when they cannot achieve them, they get depressed. They should give themselves positive rewards. When you do something that you are proud of, give yourself a small reward. Try not to wait for others to praise you because you may grow resentful if the praise doesn’t come. Pat your own back. It is a great feeling that can stay with you for a long time.
I can always ask my mother for some money, and she will definitely give me a lot of money with no questions asked. But doing this will utterly disturb my peace, because, if I ask her for money, she will know I am struggling and she will panic, and if she will panic, I will be sad and depressed too. This small process is going to disturb my entire cycle.
Yes! I can easily get a pleasant job here somewhere. But the only reason I don’t want it is because I don’t want to achieve some unreal goals or targets again in my life. Honestly, this is the only reason.
Believe me, the peace I feel here is worth all the hardships, struggle and sufferings I go through. The term ‘Paradise’ does not entitle the enrichment of your soul or your body. ‘Peace’, really gives you the power to deal with all the problems and then you can just take out 5 minutes in the evening to feel the freedom you have achieved with this peaceful living.
I sometimes look back and think I was not doing anything wrong in my life before; I was well settled and happy too. But I was always in the race of sustaining my paradise for the future. We do not call this being settled. The real problem with defining concepts like paradise or peace is that there are seven or eight or perhaps a hundred things we want to communicate. They are each different, yet we have just one word for them. Maybe rather than re-defining paradise or peace, we need to create a dozen extra words. Now there’s an area for some new thoughts.
Living in today’s metropolitan world of cellular phones, mobile computers and other high-tech gadgets is not just hectic but very impersonal. We make money and then invest our time and effort in making more money. Does it end? Not usually because we are never satisfied. How many times have we convinced ourselves that if only we had some more money, life would be so sweet? But then, after receiving a substantial raise, we realize it wasn’t enough and that we need more?
Therefore, even if we want paradise more than peace, we must have a peaceful paradise in which we know when to stop demanding more from life.
In life, we may and should be able to look at both kinds of mirrors, but we should remember that a mirror reflects only us; a window is the door to compassion, health and true wealth. Seek wealth by all means, but don’t let it dissuade you from peace, life, people, children and the needy.
Hi guys, Me again, Remember ?
So, I was thinking, all the readers who are reading this article, may also have a definition of paradise or peace in their minds. They also must deal with their own ideas of accomplishments in life.
I just want to say that Olivia found her own peace in the mountains, I found my peace in writing. You guys, too, deserve to find peace and happiness in your life.
You guys also need to create a peaceful paradise for yourselves. You should never think that you are stranded, you mind & body were created in a way that they can help you achieve anything or everything in your life. You, readers, can manifest anything in this world.
You need to learn how to feel peace within yourselves. Try making things better. You need to meet new people and enrich their minds with your peaceful influence. You should never let your surroundings affect your mentality or approach towards your lifestyle.
You get that unreal paradise out of your heads, and do something valuable with your lives. Do something that not only brings you peace but also gives you the feeling of accomplishment. It is not compulsory for you to go to the mountains or change cities. You just have to find peace within you, in your work or maybe even in your bedroom.
Friendly Advice from a Friendly Friend of a Friend
Never try to find peace in material things, those things are never meant to be permanent. Don’t find your peace in a lifestyle that people think is best for you. Don’t disturb someone else’s peace or paradise to find yours.
Always remember,
If you lose some, you gain some. You find someone, you will lose someone. You pass some; you fail some. You remember some; you forget some. Nothing you have now is permanent, but it doesn’t mean that you change that, be at peace with the fact that you have some. And let everything go by peacefully. Learn to accept facts and deny sayings. Be peaceful with your soul.
All this advice, this story, these incidents. Really Helped me ?
The answer to this question is yes. But you have to start now to know if this really works. Every story, incident or advice has a different effect on different people.
I found my peace in writing stories, novels and jokes too. I was a troubled guy to be honest, I can’t say that the story of this girl matches mine, but I know that we both are in a better situation now than in the one we used to be. We both are living peaceful lives now. We are not rich, just so that you know, but i say this with actual confidence, we are more happy than he people living in the unreal paradise world.
I really hope you guys liked this story, and learned something useful from this story and will implement his in your life and find out what is your peaceful paradise.
No one can achieve something in the blink of an eye, everyone fails in life at some points, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop trying. You should always give your mind and body time to heal and to improve by learning from your mistakes in life. Never regret your failures, always laugh at them and move on.
And don’t think much about Olivia. She is very happy nowadays, and from what she told me, she may go visit her mom really soon.
Take care, Guys.
