Peace

Mr. X lives life king style. Owns a Mercedes, a cool bungalow, a fat-packet MNC job….and heaps of matrimonial proposals. You can find him at the disco every night and self-composed by every sight. But just hold on, do you think he really is all that peaceful and happy inside?



No, he is not.



Peace, the naturally desired objective, gains substance more from its lack than from its presence. It maybe unfortunately so but the intense need and the benefits thereof cannot be overemphasized. Peace is desirable generally at 3 levels –one. The peace of mind. Two. The peace in the day-to-day work atmosphere. And three. The world peace at large. All the 3 segments maybe intricately woven together but their individual requirement is also of paramount importance.



We students wake up in the morning, prepare for the school, come back from school, attend tuitions, watch tv, eat and sleep. And throughout, we keep wondering where will we finally end up?! This implies we don’t have a single peaceful second in 24 hours. Oh! What a pathetic situation. That’s what we all think, don’t we? But last night I read that peace is just a matter of attitude. And attitude is something we can develop. So, lets see how its possible.



Let us first consider the peace of mind. Who could ignore it, who could underestimate it and who could deny the need of it? Or else at one’s own peril. Needless to say that unless one is at peace with himself, he cannot find it elsewhere. The inner peace alone defines the halo around a person and the glow on his face. I am not talking about the fair and lovely glow! But from where do we derive it? The virtues generating inner peace could be counted as efficiency, tolerance and optimism.



As it is, an inefficient person can try to find peace only at the not-so-known places. On the other hand an efficient person enjoys his work and also enjoys gaining more efficiency. Eg, Rahul is an efficient pizza boy and Ramesh, a clumsy lousy chap. Rahul will deliver a lot more pizzas than Ramesh, radiate a lot more positive energy and look satisfied. Whereas Ramesh will keep on struggling with any new equipment that the restaurant will offer. He’ll look forever agitated and forever irritated. This is how lack of efficiency creates difficulties both for the doer and the getter. And hence the loss of calm. So the first lesson is- be proficient in whatever you do.





Next. Tolerance. Tolerance contributes towards inner peace in no small measure. The cause and effect relationship between tolerance and peace of mind is the easiest thing to comprehend. Anger, which is just one ‘D’ short of danger is the enemy number one of our today’s goal. Finding peace is not just about learning how to obtain it, but also learning how to hold onto it without slipping back to angry ways. Anger is like a huge leviathan that gobbles us bit by bit. And peace is like a small white dove that can fight with this leviathan and defeat it as well. We knew that to err is human. If to forgive was also human, peace won’t be a difficult commodity to obtain. Do we need to elaborate it further? Lesson number 2- try accepting the things which you can’t change.



In the same vein, optimism has its own prominent place in generating peace. Brooding over the past misfortunes or unachieved goals could easily lead to more unachieved goals. Positive attitude helps eliminate the negative effects of failure and prepares us for success. Think good. Tell yourself ‘I am the best’. ‘I can do it’. One of my friends wrote in my slam book- ‘Face towards the sun, and the shadows will fall behind you.’



These were few quick search virtues for inner peace modulation.



Lets now consider the workplace. This relates itself to our inner peace as well as to the world peace. Workplace is where we spend most of our mind, time, energy and in fact ourselves. If it is peaceful, serene and result oriented like our dear school, we remain in good tune with ourselves. Otherwise fault finding, leg pulling, exploitation of red tape, utilizing one’s nuisance value come to the fore and lead us to the back. To make it brief one can easily surmise that nothing is peaceful unless the workplace is peaceful. Every worker in an organization should work towards peace and in turn peace will work for every worker.



Coming to the most general meaning of peace i.e. world peace, it eludes us like anything, religious hatred definitely being the root cause. In fact, religion has been turned upside down. Whereas religion intends to inculcate the oft repeated virtues of tolerance, forgiveness, truth etc, it seems to have become the undoing of these same qualities. I really don’t understand how it matters which religion a person belongs to!! Consider the twin tower tragedy brought about by our demolition man Mr. Osama Bin Laden. He thought his religion was under attack and therefore he did all this. Let me ask which religion taught him to do all this? Not Islam, not Christianity, not Hinduism not Budhism nor any other. Then why this?



Similarly who is going to benefit from the ongoing tussle between India and Pakistan over a piece of land called Kashmir? Who got any benefit from the disintegration of Soviet Union? On the other hand it was all gains and gains for everybody when the two German countries united few years back. We are still grappling with the horrors and after effects of second world war. Cant we widen the horizons and perspectives of our thought processes? Or do we want to remain a single-pond-frog throughout our lives? The ultimate dream of a cosmopolitan world like city is not unfathomable, unachievable or unenjoyable. Provided, of course we remain in our senses and don’t go beyond allotted briefs.



Improve the things which are in your power to improve. And recognize that some things are beyond your current capacity to change in the physical world, but may be changed in the "mental" world inside our minds. What I mean to say is-



Everyday when you wake up in the morning, you have 2 choices-



One. To grumble, mumble and groan about having to wake up so early in the morning.



Two. To open your eyes wide at the first wake up call and thank god for another beautiful morning.



The first option means a heavy, worn-out and depressing start to the day. The second option means a cheerful, welcoming and happy start.



The choice, is entirely yours.