How to Make Peace

Ceasing to seek power over people and outcomes in your life is the first major step to living peacefully. Trying to control people is about seeking to impose your will and reality on others without ever trying to see their side of things. A controlling approach to relationships will keep you in conflict with others. Replacing a will to control with a broad approach of loving others instead, including their faults and differences, is the way to a peaceful life.

Thinking in absolutes and holding to convictions without ever considering the viewpoints and perspectives of others is a sure way to live a life without peace. This type of extremist thinking usually leads to reactive, hasty, and driven behavior that lacks the benefit of reflection and deliberative thinking. While this may be convenient because it allows you to act with the confidence of absolute conviction, it blocks out other realities in the world and can easily lead you into conflict when other people fail to agree with your convictions. It’s harder work to remain open-minded and ready to review your understandings, yet it’s more rewarding because you’ll grow as a person and live in greater harmony with those around you.

Tolerance in all that you think and do will make a difference in your life and in the lives of others around you. Tolerance for others is about appreciating diversity, the plurality of modern society, and being willing to live and let others live too. When we fail to tolerate others’ beliefs, ways of being, and opinions, the end result can be discrimination, repression, dehumanization, and ultimately violence. Practicing tolerance is at the heart of living peacefully.

Gandhi said “There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no cause that I am prepared to kill for.” A peaceful person does not use violence against another person or animal (sentient beings). While there is much violence in this world, make a choice to not let death and killing be a part of your philosophy of living.

Reflection of thought is important – many a hasty response has resulted in a tragic outcome because the time to think through all of the issues and angles has not been taken. Naturally, there are times when fast action is essential to ensure safety but these times do not excuse the many other times when reacting with care and consideration will result in much better outcomes for all concerned.