To Be Peaceful, Or To Be Right? It’s Your Choice

To Be Peaceful, Or To Be Right?
It’s Your Choice

There are many ways to react to each and every situation in life, and how we respond makes all the difference.  We can create a peaceful life for ourselves, or we can create a world filled with chaos, conflict and discomfort.

In life there are so many ways we may want to be right, somehow we feel driven to prove our self.  And who or what is behind that force, that driving power, it is our old friend the ego.  The ego works through creating an illusion in our mind, the aim of the ego is to create desires, because the ego has to justify its existence.

So, when we want to change and to rein the ego in, then the ego does not give up and die so easily. The ego will put up a fight.  We can see that it is the wise ones who decide to keep the ego in check and allow peace to be the winner.  This is because the wise know that if we do not take this decision to control the ego, then it is we who will suffer.  So, just as age brings wisdom so does experience.

How many times have we stressed our self out and suffered in trying to prove our point?  And was it really worth it?  Where did it leave us? With more self-respect, or in complete loss and feeling depleted?  If there are legitimate disputes and we have certain rights to claim, there are the legal systems in place to register our disagreements.  But I am talking here about the daily ups and downs in life with those souls who are in our orbit. We call them family and friends, our inner circle so to speak.  Sometimes we have to ask ourselves: Is it really worth the fight to prove ourselves right?  You decide.

Peace is a simple and common term, but it has such a depth of meaning to it.  Peace means having a quality life of calm and serenity.  It means contentment and not needing to run after the next newest gadget or thing on the high street.  It means living life with grace and lightness, letting the energy flow with ease in everything.  It ultimately means to be happy!

And what happens when we go against the flow, and when we try to prove ourselves right?  We lose all of the above.  In fact, we create more karma and conflict that we will one day have to settle.  The result is that we experience sorrow and restlessness in life.  We develop more worries, mental tension, and anxiety.  In extreme cases we may even lose our health and wealth too.

The desire to want to be right can be subtle, it does not always need to appear gross.  Criticising someone’s work, interfering and showing we know more, or simply the tone of our voice can be enough to make our statement heard loud and clear.  We are transmitting the message behind our words, that: I am right!

The choice really does look very easy. Yet the egotist resists.  Perhaps there is the pleasure in the hunt and the ‘kill’.  But what kind of victory would that be?  Certainly not one that will win more friends, love and blessings.  If we forsake all that just to prove our ego is right, then we will die a sad, unhappy and lonely person.  So, then who wins in the end?  Obviously the one who chose to keep their peace will leave this world in peace.

The egotist needs to realize that he/she can’t have it all.  Learn to let go of some things.  Become humble.  Lighten up in all ways and life will be worth living.  We will come to understand that life is not a battlefield in which we always have to be on the defensive and be sharpening our weapons, fixing our tools, or aiming that artillery every day at some target!

All day we may be experiencing some inner battle of the angel and the devil. But if we can focus on the positive qualities of love and peace and happiness, we will attract that which we most want.  And these qualities you can never sacrifice.

We have to remember that we are not here to fulfil anyone’s expectations, desires, or to make them happy, which is pretty well impossible.  If they cannot make themselves happy, what makes us think that we can?  And the same goes for us.  We have to choose happiness for ourselves too.  We have to make the choices that create peace and happiness in our life.

It’s Time… to choose to be peaceful in the right way and for the right reasons.  Actually, when we choose peace everyone wins.

© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK