“The only way to protect our peace is making a decision we know will break our heart,” JB Copeland.  Sit with me on this one for a minute.  I spent a lot of my life allowing the space for people to be exactly who they were.  I always folded, always adapted, always did what made other people comfortable—and as we know I did that with the hope that they would eventually do the same for me.  I became quite adept at being the chameleon at the expense of knowing what I truly wanted and developing myself enough to do it.  I’d always almost get there and then allow whatever “stopped” me to actually stop me.  Waiting on others to do what we think we need them to do means we can be waiting an awfully long time for the things we want to come to fruition.  We allow ourselves to get comfortable and content with the way things are going and we convince ourselves what we want will eventually find its way to us.  There are circumstances that will happen—sometime we are just waiting for the universe to align.  But there are others where we need to take better stock of what’s happening around us.  When things start to feel like they aren’t a good fit, like they aren’t working out how we envisioned, that they aren’t what we thought they would be, we have to start questioning the comfort.  Is it worth it to sacrifice the bigger goal and risk regret for the sake of comfort now?

The only way to maintain peace is to make the tough choice to go with what will serve the big picture.  Copeland talks about this as breaking our heart and I want to acknowledge my interpretation of that: sometimes we have a vision that we dedicate ourselves to and we do what we can to protect it even if we know it really isn’t working.  Sometimes we have to let go of that dream/vision simply because it isn’t working.  We have to let go of the idea of what could be and give up something that we may have become attached to as a goal.  We lose people, ideas, even belief at some point and we all get confused.  That is part of the human process of development and evolution.  And it’s hard because this is all a balancing act anyway: what works, what do we want, what do we need, what are our options, when do we bend and when do we stand firm?  And it requires honestly: when are we being too rigid with our vision, when is our judgement getting in the way, are we being honest about who we are and what we want, and is any of it aligned with our values?  All of that letting go, that shedding has the potential to be painful.  But we have to grow regardless.

I want to be clear that there is a difference between comfort and peace.  We can feel comfort while we are at peace, but comfort is an avoidance mechanism where we seek to numb whatever we don’t want to feel.  Peace is a stability and inner contentment that results from faith and belief and trust in ourselves and the universe.  At the end of the day, with all the craziness and unpredictability of this ever-moving, ever-distracted, connected-yet-distant world, all we are looking for is peace.  We seek contentment and this world is all too happy to offer various options that will “give” us happiness.  Time is fleeting and this life has the uncanny ability to be remarkably short and long, both fast and slow all at the same time—and we need to remember that we have the ability to determine how we spend our time.  The only constant we have is ourselves and our ability to discern what works for us.  We need to trust our instincts. We’ve created scenarios where everything is possible but we cut off our own legs or we bury ourselves where we are for whatever reason.  We don’t need to make life harder by waiting for things to fall into place—we simply need to decide and trust that we will do the right thing even if it may hurt in the moment.  Because once we determine what is best for the long term goal, nothing can stop us.  Make the tough choice for peace regardless of anything else, even if it’s a hard choice.  Life gets pretty clear once we know what we are aiming for: temporary pain for long term success and peace is well worth it because that peace from being who we are is priceless.