Inner Tranquility
It was Friday around noontime. I am at a familiar coffee shop anxiously waiting for an important meeting.
I don’t have enough time until my next meeting in the office and I am starting to get stressed. At the tables next to me, care-free people are enjoying their coffee, as if there is no tomorrow. Suddenly, I hear someone say: “In the 21st century a rich man is one that has mental tranquility.”
Another person from the same company, continued: “Time, my friend, time and money is what you need to feel calm.”
And I thought to myself, how nice it is to hear these Greeks philosophize.
But seriously, sometimes these rambling philosophies hold some truths. And that is the truth that shook me.
How can someone develop the virtue of mental tranquility?
To see his life and the lives of those he loves as if it’s a movie, and when the turbulence is gone, everything returns to the usual normality.
Why do I fear that for every plan and action the worst will happen and we die from anxiety before it even happens? What does our mind play mazochistic games? Why can’t we accept life and enjoy it with its own wisdom, since we believe in God? What is mental tranquility?
The answer is HAPPINESS.
It’s a child that plays as if there is no tomorrow, happy and calm. It’s good company, a giving person. It’s blessedness. Anyone that you ask will tell you that happiness is only moments.
Yes, it’s moments and the memory of moments, when we were somehow different. Happiness is an internal state, my friends. It’s not something tangible. It’s not sunsets or expensive cars. On the contrary, the fight to win the material pleasures of life is what takes away our mental tranquility, only to give it back to us, if we win the Lotto or earn a lot of money.
Mental peace is the booty of control we want to have over life. It is the victory of fear of death. It is our courage to lose.
If you cannot find the peace within you, it makes little sense to look for it somewhere else. Everything happens inside. Outside they get their material dimensions. It is not by chance that in the 21st century mankind focused on the meaning of life, well-being and consciousness. Without them we get sick. Even our cells abandon us.
Surely all this seems ideal now that we are together, and tomorrow again it will be one of the same. No one woke up and decided to be calm and lived happily ever after. But, some food for thought is always welcome. Happiness is a decision and being calm is an indication that we are on the right track.
Have a great summer!
