Not Everyone Wants To Make Peace

Just when you think the world has ended…

It hasn’t. We lose battles all the time. The important thing is that we handle every challenge life presents us with in the best way we know how. But sometimes even those efforts will backfire. Sometimes two people have two very different ideas of “the right thing to do.”

When we encounter hostility, we often think of the individuals in our lives who have embodied peacefulness and attempt to emulate them: peaceful, humble, mature. And sometimes what life gives us in return for our efforts is a hard lesson that we did not expect.

Not everyone wants to make peace.

It is difficult to watch virtuous behavior prove ineffective. Maybe this is why movies have happy endings. We like to think that when we do the right thing, good things will happen. We like to believe that our problems can be solved with just the right word or action. We would hate to think that we can give something our best shot only to produce a completely undesirable outcome. It happens.

The truth is that even the lovable are not loved by everyone. The trustworthy are not trusted by everyone. We practice to make perfect, and so naturally we are forced to sort through trials and errors before we learn how something is done. And sometimes those trials and those errors never forget our names. It is entirely possible to act out of love and have people hate you in return.

Ultimately, these obstacles are tests of moral character. Not only that, but they are catalysts for it. When challenged by adversity, by reluctance, we can come back even stronger. If we want to.

As we gain life experience, what we realize is that most big deals aren’t that big. We realize that when “everyone” thinks a certain way, it’s not really everyone. We realize that very few things amount to the level of seriousness we may project onto them. Things blow over. Things take time. This even applies to the things that are very thorough in assuring us that they will never be okay, that the bridge has been burnt.

Well, bridges have been known to get rebuilt.

At the end of the day, most of the things we become really great at are the very things we didn’t do right the first time. Life usually gives us the chance to get better. Take it.