Develop yourself to the best of your ability
A person who has gained peace of mind has gained everything. To obtain peace of mind, you need to be at peace with the people in your environment. You need to be at peace with yourself, with your emotions and desires. Furthermore, you need to be at peace with your Creator.
(Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe)
Peace of mind is the tranquility that someone experiences when they have nothing to reproach themselves for.
It arises when we learn to be at peace with those around us. Peace in the sense of accepting that the other person is different from you. Not everyone has the same character traits, desires and dreams. Accepting that someone is different makes you not get annoyed or angry at another’s behaviors, which are not bad, just different.
You can link it to: love your neighbor as you love yourself. That even if someone makes a mistake, you put yourself in that person’s shoes and think how you would react if you yourself had made that mistake.
And that brings us to the next point. Learning to be at peace with yourself. Everyone has traits they are proud of and traits they are less proud of. You have to learn to accept yourself with all your imperfections, limitations, character flaws, bad habits, etc. The moment you accept yourself, that you accept that you are as G-d created you, from that moment on you are able to start improving yourself from a healthy emotional base and self-esteem into an even better version of yourself. Knowing and understanding that your imperfections are meant to be learned from and grown and that they are a tool for inner improvement and strength.
Which brings us to the final point, being at peace with G-d. For why did He create me with imperfections, why is my neighbor not the way I want him to be and behave, why is the world not perfect and we see so many imperfections? To have peace with G-d means a true recognition of the existence of G-d in every detail of the world, and in every detail of one’s life. This will bring a person to a recognition of G-d’s Divine Providence over His creations. Simply put, every entity, with its life and existence, is constantly being created at every moment by G-d’s will and with His knowledge.
Which brings us back to our state of mind. If we know that everything is in G-d’s hands, that our neighbors are as they should be, that we are as we should be then that means everything is good. Good is to strengthen our relationship with G-d, good is to help improve the world, improve our neighbor, improve ourselves. And that if we do our best, that’s good enough.
By Angelique Sijbolts
Sources: The seven gates of righteous knowledge p.27
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