It’s easy to spot sadness, strife and chaos on a daily basis. Just look around.

Look next door; listen to how some husbands, wives and children interact. Look at the people around you — the people in line in front of you, the employees who staff your dry cleaner, the people mopping up the floor or stocking shelves at your grocery store, the employees at the post office, the car wash, your mailman, the sign-spinners on the corner trying to make a few bucks, the people working at the Goodwill, the person in the next office over, and even your favorite fast-food joint. They may put on a brave face every day, but we really don’t know what the next person is up against. And even if they tell us, there’s usually a little bit of editing that goes on. Nobody wants to be a burden; I know I don’t.

The opposite can be true of these people, too. They might’ve pulled themselves up out of a hole so deep that we’d never wish it on our worst enemy; they might be quietly thankful for their life every day. We just never know.

I remember telling someone in the last year — it might’ve been my mom — that all I really want to find in life is peace; peace, nourishment for my soul, and things that make my heart happy. It’s not that I haven’t had it thus far, because I have. I’ve had big, heaping spoonfuls of it. It’s just that I’ve been out of the nest for quite some time, and with each passing year, I see more sadness, more angst, more negativity around me; it’s a wonder it doesn’t swallow us all up. I realize how blessed I am because of the nest I grew up in, and I want to maintain it for myself. 

Week before last, I opened up a fortune cookie at lunch. Like all fortunes that I get, I saved this one; it’s pinned to my corkboard in my office.

“Your life will be peaceful and fulfilling,” it reads.

I think any fortune can be true if we want it to be. And for this one, I am thankful. It’s a nice, daily reminder to do what I need to do to find that peace and to find whatever makes me feel fulfilled, because only I have that power. Not anyone else.

Not the chaos, not the strife, not the world.

Me.