INNER PEACE

Please know, this is NOT about discrediting anyone's beliefs, religion, past, etc.. This is strictly my opinion, formed from observation and experience.

I am a very open minded person, however opinionated, to a degree.

I believe that all people are searching for the same thing ...i.e., finding:  ones self,  soul, heart, God, peace...  whatever.

We all go about finding "IT"  (I call it inner peace) in different ways, depending upon our experience, nationality, country, exposure, culture, religion, family, etc..

It is a mystery to me, why this simple peace is placed into such complicated, tight little boxes, containing illogical rules,  superstitions, myths, etc., derived from our ancestor's opinions.

What a difference it would make if all the boxes were removed... nothing else would have to change... people could continue to believe whatever gives them peace.

Whatever experience gives an individual peace is right for them... peace comes to each person in it's own unique way.

Using my own experience and knowledge this is how I MAINTAIN my own peace (how I FOUND it, is another long, long story):

I DO (at least am aware and try to)

1. Face my own TRUTH as an individual
2. Take total RESPONSIBILITY for my actions, feelings, past, choices, etc..
3. Take ACTION..i.e., do what my gut knows is the right thing, right now, in all instances

I DON'T

1. EXPECT anyone or anything to make me happy
2. ASSUME someone else will take care of my responsibilities
3. BLAME others for how I feel or for what has happened to me in the past

I have NOT studied theology, ancient history, psychology, or much of anything else for that matter...  :)  however, the most famous quotes down through the ages,  from many different authors  have the same meaning as what I have come to realize, is the only way to maintain my inner peace...

QUOTES:

• It is a great thing to know our vices (Cicero)
• The truth which makes men free is for the most part, the truth which men prefer not to hear (Herbert Agar)
• Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom (Aristotle)
• To thine own self be true (Shakespeare)
• So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead (Bible/James 2:17)
• Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing ever happened. (Sir Winston Churchill)
• Do not run from the truth. There be naught so hard to live with as a lie. (Kathryn L. Nelson)
• Know them by their deeds (Ye shall know them by their fruits..Bible)
• Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. (Mark Twain)
• Where is there dignity unless there is honesty (Cicero)
• Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie (Shakespeare)
• To each his own (Cicero)
• Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Bible/Philippians 2:12b)
• Call a spade a spade (Menander)
• The buck stops here (Harry Truman)
• Excuses are like assholes everybody has one (?)
• There ain't no such thing as a free lunch (unknown)
• It takes courage to grow up and be who you really are. (E.E. Cummings)
• Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibiles, the won'ts.  Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can  be. (Shel Silverstein)
• It is our choices, Harry that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities (JK Rowling)
• If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second or even the third place. (Cicero)
• We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one (Cicero)
• I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief. (Gerry Spence)
• To be or not to be (Shakespeare)
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
• We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are (Anais Nin)
• Alas, the fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself  (Carlyle)
• Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so (Shakespeare)
• In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body. (Cicero)
• The patient must minister to himself (Shakespeare)
• The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars (Shakespeare)
• Infirm of Purpose (Shakespeare)
• Credulity is a man's weakness but a child's strength (Lamb)
• A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug (Patricia Neal)
• People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be (Abe Lincoln)
• When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. (Helen Keller)
• You don't have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body      (C.S. Lewis)
• Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know      (Montaigne)
• They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were;  they all fused into a single stubbornness.   (Louise Erdrich)