If you want to achieve inner peace you must be able to answer these two questions.
- What kind of person do I want to be?
- What kind of life do I want to have?
Without the answers to these questions we have no aim and thus we are aimless. When we’re aimless we have no direction and having direction is something that supports inner peace because direction also creates the possibility of certainty. When we have certainty we can have inner peace. Conversely, uncertainty is the enemy of inner peace. A life without direction is a life of uncertainty and a life where inner peace is difficult to achieve for any sustained period of time.
What kind of person do you want to be? You can be the vocal type who seeks to lead and be recognized or the quiet type who prefers to work in the shadows or be alone. You can be ambitious, always striving for new accomplishments or you can be steady and content with your place in the world. You can be artistic and constantly be creating or you can be analytical and follow established standards. You can be athletic, placing a priority on physical health, you can simply maintain average health or let yourself go. You can climb a corporate ladder or you can seek to create your own career path as an entrepreneur. There are so many choices and these are just a few you can make.
What kind of life do you want to have? You could live in the country, the city or in between in the suburbs. You could lead a stationary life, staying in one place for many years, you could move every few years or you could be nomadic and move often. You could have a family and be surrounded by many loved ones or you could lead a more solitary life. You can choose to live in a conventional manner or an unconventional manner. You can live in a place where people are much like you or seek out places where you’re different. Once again there are so many choices to make and as you go through life you will likely adjust your decisions.
Knowing whether or not you are heading in the right direction with respect to these questions allows you to appropriately consider major decisions to be made in your life. I’m not talking about decisions on things like what you’ll have for dinner or where you’ll go on your next vacation (although at some level these decisions are informed by your answers to the questions). Think of the big decisions like where (or even if) you’ll go to college and what you’ll study, what you’ll do in your career, where in the world you’ll settle down, who you’ll marry (if anyone) and whether or not you’ll have children. These are all decisions that end up having a significant impact on you and your life.
The more you are able to define the answers to these questions and the more certainty you are able to create with respect to making the answers a reality, then the closer you’ll be to inner peace. The bottom line is that certainty in your life’s outcomes and inner peace go hand in hand. It’s a basic two step process. First, you must know what you want from your life. Second, you must know how to get what you want from your life. This is very simple in concept but very difficult in practice. Why? Distractions, doubt, fear and indecision are all enemies of achieving our life’s purposes and in turn they are enemies of inner peace.
In The Midst Of A Journey 