Thoughts on Attaining Inner Peace

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In my last few posts I have shared thoughts on leadership, stress and the effects of analysis paralysis. My goal has been to drive home the point that we choose how we experience life. There is a quotation I’ve seen posted quite often on the Internet that says: “Life is ten percent what happens to us and ninety percent how we respond to it.”

Life really is considerably simpler than we make it out to be. We just have to learn to take it one day and one step at a time. Given that information I would like to share with you a poem that I came across as a young man. It provided me with a wealth of information on daily living.

I'm hoping it can help you to find inner peace, as it did me. Its concepts are biblical in nature and applicable to any place and time. It’s titled Desiderata and was written in the 1920s by Mr. Max Ehrmann.

Desiderata - by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Until next time here’s hoping that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless!