Peace Is Not the Destination
We spend all summer–every summer–with our eyes on October. An October when we are finally crowned champions. We spend our time preparing for someday. – (A Long Walk Home, Chapter 12 Weed Smoke and Police Dogs)
The above passage refers to how baseball fans sometimes lose the glory and meaning of the game because all we are concerned with is winning. Being crowned champion is the obvious destination for every athlete at every level, but to the fan that mindset is an empty promise. A promise that makes us waste an enormous amount of time waiting for “someday.” We do this outside of sports too. In fact, we do it in every facet of our lives.
Happiness is not a destination, it is a choice we make along the journey. Likewise, peace is not a destination, it’s a choice. We’ve been sold a bill of goods – a pack of lies actually – that if our side could just prevail we’d have peace. This lies true on the international scale, on the political scale, and in our own personal relationships. The notion of peace as a destination simply leads us to be in a constant state of agitation. We’re in conflict with ourselves, conflict with our partners, conflict with those whom we disagree with politically because we think that will lead us to peace. My insistence that peace is a destination invariably forces me to lose empathy for you and your journey. If your peace is not aligned with mine, your quest for peace as a destination leads you to become selfish and ignore my suffering. We’re caught in a vicious cycle that gets amplified by the culture and the media. The promise that we’ll have peace if we just follow whatever voice is shouting in our heads at any given moment is the greatest manipulation of the modern world.
It's a lie we have become conditioned to believe is true.
Peace comes with every step of your journey. The outside world is very rarely going to be truly and deeply concerned with your peace, so you have to choose peace for yourself, but true peace doesn’t come from getting what we want out of life. In fact, it comes from accepting what life gives us. It comes from understanding that each moment is a precious gift that shouldn’t be squandered. Good moments, bad moments, blissful moments and painful moments are all opportunities for us to be at peace along our journey. The act of being mindful in the moment is what brings about peace. If peace is a destination maybe the destination is in each singular moment.
Given the state of the world today, maybe it’s time we stopped depending on the outside world, the culture and our so-called leaders, to lead us to peace. Maybe it’s time we turned our backs on the things that enrage us. Maybe it’s time we become agents for peace with every step of our journey. A thousand people truly living in inner peace is more powerful than ten thousand people foisting their own version of peace on us in a false attempt to get what they want.