March 1 Enough

In order to have peace, we must have our basic needs met. Those who do not have enough to eat or a warm place to live cannot be at peace. Those who fear for their physical safety in their homes do not live in peace. And because peace is contagious, when those around us don’t have what they need, their lack of peace affects all of us.
But the problem is different for many of us.
For us, an obstacle to peace is our focus on all the things we want that we don’t really need. Those of us who have our basic needs met still think we need lots of stuff. The power of advertising makes us want things that aren’t necessities and sometimes aren’t good for us.
There seems to be no end to what we want. We want things that we think will make us happy or better looking. We want things that will raise our status on the Winner Ladder. We want to measure up to people in the ads who seem to enjoy life so much more than we do.
If we are to live in peace it helps to decide that we are attractive enough, thin enough, well dressed enough, that we can live on our current income. It helps to decide that what we have is enough.
It might help to remind ourselves every now and then, “All those possessions are nice, thank you very much, but I prefer peace.”