While health and vitality are responsible for the natural physical condition of a person, peace and happiness are responsible for the natural emotional state.
There is a modern parable about this.
A group of prestigious university alumni, highly established in their careers, decided to visit their old university professor. Conversation turned on work: the alumni complained of various difficulties and problems in life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups — porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite — telling them to help themselves to the coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:
— Notice that all the nice looking cups have been taken up, leaving behind the cheap ones. While such an approach is normal for you — to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. You should understand that the cup itself cannot make the coffee better. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. You really wanted coffee, not the cup. You consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.
Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain your life. The type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.
The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.
When you feel that you have lost peace of mind and happiness, this can only mean one thing — something that you are doing or telling is wrong. A human being is very complicated. The feelings of well-being and illness, pleasure and distress can be caused by an infinite number of factors. Your inner feeling of happiness is the best indicator telling you what to pay attention to and what to try to avoid. The failures in life are like pain to the body. They are sent to warn that things you are doing are not useful for you.