Your Peace Amidst Storm

It has been so long since I read a book that felt so deep within. Every sentences and phrases made absolute sense that it triggered me; that it made me look back at every decision I have made so far. The right ones and the wrong ones. It is true when people say there’s no greater teacher to teach you life than life itself. There is lesson in every step we take and there’s experience in every time we slip. But lately, I have been having thoughts, memories or reminders haunting me from the past. I couldn’t tell exactly what but I was sure that it was one of my bad decisions, that kept dragging me so behind.

I regretted making that mistake, I have since the beginning, yet it seemed so hard to let go of it. The thought further developed and affixed onto my life; that every time something went bad, I started pointing it out to the same thing. Like a spiral, or a circle exactly. This denial and the complaining nature of mine, was the strong force holding me back and what conceived the anxiety of making future decisions or finding a solution. That way, no matter how hard I tried, swayed and ran farther, it drove me backward; I somehow ended up at the start of the circle, again.

Two reasons; I am scared to face the reality and I have built my own comfort zone around denial. The reality is bitter, it is no honey and lemon bitter, more like a paracetamol stuck in your throat. We are afraid of being judged for who we are. And that’s when we trash the ways of our happiness and decide to live for others, the society. We abide by their invisible system that sucks up our smiles and turn them into misery. They profit from our lower self-esteem. They tell us we are not good enough. They tell the darker us to whiten up and the pale ones to tan it down, to be richer than our neighbour, to be wiser than our friends, to be dominant over our spouse and to be superior over genders. And where do we find time for love in between? There’s only time for hatred, we hate because of our greed. And what happens when we fall behind and fail to keep up with the system? The infinite loop; we are back in the circle.

To waive me out of these encircling thoughts and to find my peace, I started to think. When was the last time I was happy and how long did that last? And to my surprise, I couldn’t tell. Every time I decided to step it up a bit, to earn a thousand pounds more a month, to have the latest iPhone and to upgrade from a sedan to an SUV; it was never enough. The greed within me had grown against the desires. In what terms would I find my peace amidst the storm of such desires? Only when I convince myself that it is enough. You don’t have to compete with the world anymore. For me, it just felt as if we have reached beyond the boundaries looking for something that is right there in the middle. You know how we find peace? We simply stop looking for it.

The magic we are looking for doesn’t come in forms of fairies. The mantra is to believe. To believe that what is meant for you shall come to you eventually. To believe that you have enough and that you are enough. Then we let it be, let life flow, and emotions to see through you. To be not a burden to another and to not destroy the peace of another in search of our own.

All these thoughts began from reading a book. The mantra is to believe. However, peace is not common for two souls. What you dwell is in your own heaven, do not wish for something that belongs to another. And do not let greed take over your desires.

The book was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

Feroz Mohamed

Feroz is an ardent reader who decided to write. Holds an associate in psychology on the side.

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