Throughout history, many people have dedicated their lives to achieving World Peace. Some people believe that certain ideological and political movements will make this possible. Others believe that only faith in a certain religion or the arrival of a certain prophesied individual can achieve this.
There are even people who believed (ironically) that World Peace can only be achieved through overwhelming violence or control (such as the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction or a dictatorial World Government). However, despite the efforts of these people (or perhaps because of their efforts), Humanity is still at war during the early 21st century.
Although we may not have the power to convince or compel everyone to embrace peace, we can stop our violence to the people around us and heal our own mental pain. This is possible even if we are serving compulsory military service and physically bearing arms everyday – it is sufficient that we do not bear arms against each other within our mind.
How do we come to peace, then? The first step is to realise that we are at war with reality. Whenever we demand or require a reality that is different from the one in front of us, we end our peace.
- When we do not get our expected pay raise, we are at war with our boss.
- When it rains and we want to go to the beach, we are at war with the weather.
- When our life partner starts to see someone we do not like, we are at war with him/her.
- When our parents want us to do something we object, we are at war with them.
- When things turn out much worse than expected, we are at war with the world/God.
After a lifetime of being at war, it is certainly difficult to have peace. However, it is only when we have came to peace within ourselves that we can bring peace to the world around us. When everyone has fully came to peace within themselves, World Peace then becomes inevitable.
