My Missing Peace…Is Found In Being Average

“I just don’t want to lose my peace. I just don’t want to lose my peace.”

I kept saying it over and over again to Laura as I paced through the parking lot the other night. When I talk, I pace…no matter what I’m talking about. The more intense the conversation…the faster the pace of my pacing.

Peace is something that has eluded my adult life. Frankly, it’s never even been something I valued. When all hell broke out in my life, all of a sudden peace became something that I was desperate to find.

Peace was missing from my life.

When all the adrenaline rushes are gone…
When friendships are hard to come by…
When you feel all alone in a psych ward…
Peace becomes very important.

I’ve experienced so much of a lack of peace that I didn’t even know if it was possible to embrace. In fact, the opposite of peace is war. If you’ve ever lacked peace, you know that there is an internal war raging inside your mind and heart. There are conflicting thoughts, desires, passions, and emotions…all swirling within.

Most of the swirling in my life revolved around a desire to be successful and way above average.

Tonight as Laura and I met with our marriage therapist, he defined peace as embracing the fact that I’m average. He indicated that in light of God’s incredible power and creativity, we’re all quite average. Some of us may be a little more skilled or experienced in particular areas of life, but all of us are average in light of God’s greatness. He believes that when we accept our averageness and enjoy life right where we are, we’ll finally find peace. This doesn’t mean that I sit around and become complacent. In actuality, my desire is to express my gifts and talents to their fullest…as a path of enjoyment…not as a way to prove the fact that I’m above average in some way.

In a weird way, my peace is found in being average…and being okay with it.

Unfortunately, the pace of the frantic life that most of live stands in contrast to all of this. In this article by Anne Lamott, I resonated with her take on what we exchange our time for…

“I sometimes teach classes on writing, during which I tell my students every single thing I know about the craft and habit. This takes approximately 45 minutes. I begin with my core belief—and the foundation of almost all wisdom traditions—that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

Then I bring up the bad news: You have to make time to do this.

This means you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.

Needless to say, this is very distressing for my writing students.”

For the last couple of years, I’ve been experiencing an increasing level of peace in my life, and I don’t want to lose it. No new opportunities…no degree of outward success (and all the pushing required) is worth losing the incredible sense of peacefulness that I’m enjoying by embracing who I am right now…”an ass some days and a saint the others.” (direct quote from my therapist)

Peace is powerful.