“Peace is not the absence of struggle, it is learning to stop judging oneself as a human being.” ~ Unknown
At the time of writing, I am on vacation.
My wife and I were parked by a quiet lake in our small RV. We always love that part: bring our little piece of the world everywhere we go. Our cup of coffee. Our blankets. Our favorite food. Our habits. Familiar little things that make unfamiliar places feel like us.
This morning, the lake looks quiet.
It rained softly against the window. The sky was gray and heavy in the familiar way, indicating that the weather could get worse before the end of the day.
The forecast is assumed to be perfect: mid-80s, sunlight, the kind of weather people imagine when they think of a quiet weekend.
Yesterday was hot but the wind was strong. Not just the wind. The wind blew enough as we continued to check the awning. The wind is moderate enough that the seat needs to be adjusted. Moderate winds that even relax feel like it requires little control.
This morning, the rain shifted from early in the morning and there was talk of a storm later as the cold front pushed.
There was a version for myself, and if I was honest, sometimes still, that would have quietly resisted throughout the day because of the fact that it did not cooperate with the expectations I had created for it. Not so much. Just inside. That mild stress. That invisible argument with what is happening.
“This is not how it is supposed to go.”
I think a lot of the suffering hidden in that sentence is not from pain alone, but from coping with pain, change, and the simple fact that life does not conform to the letters we wrote for it.
And often our own resistance to reactions.
Disappointment that we think we should not feel. Disappointment that we think we should grow. The anxiety we believe should be gone now.
I did it with the weather forecast. But I also did it in work relationships, in grief, in treatment, and in my own head.
I felt that when the conversation with my wife did not go as planned, and instead of simply admitting that I was in pain or disagree, I began to make up my mind.
I felt it at work when one of the distractions turned into five and my planned days gradually disappeared.
I felt it when I woke up for no apparent reason and immediately began to question why it was still happening. Still this? Still here? After all this practice? After all this breathing?
That is the part I do not always like to acknowledge, especially those who practice meditation and mindfulness.
I know how to pause. I know how to breathe. I know how to notice an idea before it becomes. I know the language of acceptance.
What I do not always know is that I am trying to accept the truth while quietly denying my own experience about it.
And still I have: disturbed by the rain, checking the forecast again, trying to breathe my way out of frustration.
I used to think that no longer means inviolable. As if I meditated enough, reflected enough, and healed enough, life would finally stop affecting me so much.
I think awareness is supposed to calm me down, evolve more, react less.
But somewhere along the way, even awareness begins to feel good.
Every difficult feeling becomes something that needs to be optimized. Every awkward moment became a lesson I needed to learn the meaning. Every reaction has to go through an invisible spiritual filter before I allow myself to feel it.
Am I dealing with attachments? Ego? Struggle? Incorrect?
Another thing to fix?
It became exhausting. Not because the mind is worthless, but because I have turned awareness into a different management system.
Sometimes I did it in small, almost invisible ways.
Maybe an article didn’t come back as fast as I hoped, and I told myself I was watching my attachments. But in reality, I was just upset and sometimes crazy.
The plan changed at the last minute and I told myself I was exercising flexibility. But actually I was angry.
There is a kind of honesty that is lost when things become lessons too quickly.
Underneath all that is another fear: if I really give up, if I stop controlling every reaction, maybe I will stop caring.
Maybe the acceptance will make me inactive. Maybe peace will tear me apart. Maybe I’ll be one of those people who can nod his head at everything and call it wisdom.
But it never happened.
I still care. I care about the day. I care about my wife. I care about the time we spend together.
What I began to understand was that abandonment was no less of a concern. It’s about demanding less perfection from myself.
It was about letting go of frustration for a while without turning my frustration into another personal failure.
That’s the real thing I’m finally starting to see.
I do not just resist the truth. I am against the truth, I am still against the truth. This second layer is tired.
It’s one of those moody times where he would break into endless soliloquy with himself. It’s another thing to judge yourself as frustrated by the rain on vacation.
It is one thing to feel angry when plans change. It is another thing to decide that irritability means you are not as peaceful, evolving or grounded as you think.
That’s where I think a lot of us get stuck.
We do not just feel we feel. We evaluate it. We classify it. We compare ourselves to who we think we should be now.
And sometimes, if we are not careful, our conscience becomes another way to do so. Instead of giving us more room to be human, it becomes another standard that we are meeting.
Meditation is where I notice this most clearly.
I sat down, closed my eyes, and immediately started trying to have the “right” experience. I want to take my breath deep. I want my heart to calm down. I want my body to be soft. I want to feel calm, open, grateful, wise.
But usually the body tells the truth before the mind is ready to accept it. My jaw is tight. My chest is protected. My thoughts are strong. My breath is shallow.
And then I try to fix it too. I try to breathe better. Relax better. Accept better.
Of course, this is just another form of management.
As I try to make breathing feel more natural, it becomes more unnatural.
But every now and then I stop interfering for a second. Not because I found something. Not because I have reached some heights. I’m just tired of self-control.
And in that small space, the body remembers. The breath moves on its own.
Not perfect. Not spiritual. Honestly.
Maybe living is similar.
Perhaps peace is not the absence of chaos. Maybe Peace is learning to ease relentless negotiations with reality while accepting that sometimes I will still struggle with it because I am human.
So this morning, when it was raining all over the camp and the forecast changed again, I found myself:
“So what.”
Not by bitterness. Not by anesthesia. Almost with relief.
Because maybe this is an adventure. Not a sleek version. Not a prepared version of perfect weather, perfect mood and perfect faith. Uncertainty. The sky changes. The storm came unexpectedly. The secret of not knowing exactly what the day will be like.
Later, after the rain, my wife went outside.
The seat is still wet. The air feels cooler. The lake looks different than before, no better. Not worse. Just changed.
Nothing about that day followed the image I had in my mind. But we are still there. Together. Coffee in hand. Watching the water.
And I realized how much of a normal time I missed because I was busy comparing it to what I imagined and then resisted my struggles.
Maybe that is what I have been looking for all the time. It is not the mind that stops feeling. Not the mind that stops reacting. Not the idea of finally finding a way to calm down through everything.
Just having enough freedom to stop demanding all the time becomes something else before letting myself live it.
I do not mean that I am enlightened. I just mean I stopped trying so hard to be the one who was never caught.
I stopped turning all my discomfort into a self-improvement project. I stopped needing time to become something else before I agreed to live.
I leave one day as a day. I leave the weather as the weather. I consider myself a person who sometimes still wants sunlight when it rains.
And I stop taking that desire as proof that I am doing something wrong.
Then the sky cleared.
There is wind. It’s hot again. Almost the kind of weather I think I need to enjoy the day.
That feels funny.
Not because it revealed some great spiritual points, but because life continued to change before I could decide what it meant.
Maybe that is a practice.
Do not stop caring. Do not give up hope. Do not stop feeling frustrated when things change.
But stop making any changes as an individual betrayal. To stop, I really need to match the script before I allow myself to be here.
Because this is the life I continue to receive. Not a sleek version. Not the version in my head. This one: rain, wind, clearing, change, uncontrollable and alive.
About Brian Reich
Brian Reich writes about conscience, self-esteem, and living with a lesser mind through Unscripted Mind, Just Breathe, and The Pause Room. His work explores the ordinary times when understanding, struggle, humor, and humanity meet. You can find his writing and resources for free at Just-breath.ghost.io.
