Finding Inner Peace

So often we seek external validation. Approval from our parents. Our peers. Or even people who truly don’t give a shit about us.

And sometimes it comes, but it’s empty. It never fulfills us as much as we hope it would. It doesn’t fill the void of eternal satisfaction. All it does is leave us thirsting for more. Another fix. Kind of like a drug.

We think that at some point, the drug will be enough. But that’s not how they work. We become dependent on something that is fleeting.

Social media feeds into this addiction. The little dopamine spike we get from likes on our latest Instagram post, the wave of euphoria that comes when we see the little red bubble on Facebook. But they don’t mean anything.

And sometimes we wonder why we’re sad or depressed, but we don’t realize that when we depend on others to make us happy, the happiness becomes superficial. 

We can only be happy once we find it in ourselves. Our own inner peace. Maybe we find happiness by spreading love instead of seeking it. 

Maybe we’re like onions and at the core is love. Maybe Shrek is much deeper than we thought? Once we peel away all of the external barriers, we reach something much more deep and meaningful. (Do onions have cores?)

Or maybe happiness is overrated and really what we need is to find a lasting peace internally, rather than euphoria externally. Once we stop depending on others to give us superficial satisfaction, we’ll become comfortable no matter how much or little external validation we receive. 

I’ve been working towards this internal peace for a really long time. Sometimes I feel like I’ve achieved it, while at other points, it becomes a distant memory. Perhaps it’s something that we always need to foster, and the satisfaction comes from the journey rather than the result. 

But little by little, I feel like I’m getting closer – like a line going towards infinity. It never truly reaches a final destination, but it’s slowly getting closer to something. That’s all we can hope for, right?