People were born to learn and to grow. Growth often occurs when individuals confront problems and no matter how hard the situation is they still struggle to find ways out of problems, and through that struggle, they can develop new aspects of their skills, capacities, and views about life. Life, therefore, is an endless process of creatively moving forward, even if only in small ways.[1] Through life, we can find the true meaning which we can define who we really are. In our daily life, people might have conflicts because they do not know each other clearly, and even themselves. Some people try to end the conflicts by winning others, but they cannot win themselves. All means of peace come from within. Through inner peace, we can spread to others and the whole world. However, in order to cultivate inner peace, we have to find the land which is we, ourselves.
Normally, all people were born with
strengths and weaknesses. Life sometimes goes up, sometimes goes down,
sometimes we get success and sometimes we face failure. However, success is not
something inherited and failure is not something we cannot learn. In
fact, success is something that everyone has achieved at one point in their
life, and failure is the main factor that builds success. We fall many
times before you succeed. It’s the failures that give us character and
make us that much stronger as a person. It is undeniable that before I reach my
current point, I encountered countless difficulties and also many achievements.
There are three factors that help generate my success – personality, external
support and chance. First of all, I believe I have a good personality. I always
have positive thoughts towards myself and others. I have strong commitment and self-motivation.
For example, I always make things done by putting much effort and rarely get
depression. I have my own disciplines and beliefs. I have clear goal and
mission. When I was in grade 2, I was a weak student among many kids in class.
I got a very low score in every exam. The result did not make me and my family
happy at all. To satisfy my family, I committed myself to study hard to get a
good grade. I knew that it was not what I could not do if I put enough effort
on it. Since then my life have been improving. My grade gradually becomes
better and finally I got the top student in the class. Additionally, was a good
leader because I believe in the theory that leadership is not a position; it is
a process. It is an observable, understandable, learnable set of skills and
practice available to everyone, anywhere in the organization.[2]
I remember when I was in grade 6, my
commitment still raised me up. I got the high appreciation as the top student
in district after an exam joined by many clever students from other schools. I
can say it is the first great achievement I got in my life. Another success for
me is when I studied in grade 12. I passed the grade-12 exam with a very good
grade. I spent most of my energy and time on studying. Besides, my success was
achieved by having a strong support from many people around me, especially my
family – either financial or emotional, and actually the chance that was given.
However, during my high school time, I also got failure. For instance, when I
was in grade 9, I was failed in provincial exam which is a competition for
clever students to get the seat in national exam. I knew that it was a big
competition and was very challenging. I also believed that my capacity was not
enough to win and I was lack of confidence. Moreover, I thought I would not be
given a chance to win because of the corruption. I did not encourage myself to
do my best and to be well prepared. To me, although it was not a success, it is
a very useful lesson learned that I can make improvement.
According to Stephen R. Covey, nature
of man is influenced by three factors – genetic, psychic and environmental
influence. Genetic influence basically comes
from our grandparents who did it to us. That’s why we have such a temper. It
just goes through the generations and we inherited it. Naturally, I believe I
inherited patience and kindness from my grandparents. I can easily control my
anger. I was born with peace in mind. I am frightened to make argument or
conflict. I realize that this characteristic also applies to my grandparents
who are loving kindness and moral. Until now, I have only a few arguments and
every argument has been ended peacefully. Second, psychic influence basically comes
from our parents who did it to us. Our upbringing, our childhood experience
essentially laid out our personal tendencies and our character structure.
That’s why we are afraid to be in front of a group. It’s the way our parents
brought us up. To me, I really believe in this theory. I am a passive person
who always hides my own feeling and usually talk less. When I was young, I was
left alone since my parents were busy earning money. I had little time to stay
and talk with them. I even rarely went out with friends and relatives because I
was assigned a duty to do housework and study. Now I find out that I am shaped
by this influence. I am weak in making relationship, communication and
connection. I am nervous in talking or expressing my ideas in public. In
addition, I always have conflicts with myself when I cannot achieve what I have
expected. My parents taught me to be ambitious. Since I was young, I am told to
pursue perfectionism, best result and high credit. I sometimes strongly blame
on myself and feel terrible if I make any small mistake. Third, environmental
influence basically comes from social condition and cultural teaching. Someone
or something in our environment is responsible for our situation. For example, In
Cambodia, nearly most of people follow Buddhism. We are taught not to
discriminate or devalue other religions. We know how to live peacefully with
Christians and Islamists. It shows that we have peace through our religion.
As I am a Buddhist, I really believe
in the basic principles of Buddhism. I have grown inner peace through following
the four nobles truth and noble eightfold path.[3]
Buddha guides me to reduce, weaken and eliminate suffering, hatred, anger,
greed and delusion, to have right understanding, right thought, right speech,
right action, and right mindfulness. I am taught to be aware of my mind and
thought, my feeling and emotion. For example, I do good to people to be happy,
and I do not harm or hurt other because I am afraid of having sin. I do not
revenge people that give harm to me and in contrast I resolve it in peaceful
way. For instance, when I was studying in university in the first year, many
students in my class hated and was envy to me because I was countryside
resident and clever than them. They tried to expel me from the class in as many
ways as possible. However, I had tried to be quiet and stay strong, and even
tried to be their friend but pulling the gap closer. Finally, I can overcome
the problem and they even help me in my studying. Thinking back, I cannot
imagine about the result if I fought against them and conflict happened at that
time. Furthermore, education and
experience play a very important role in my life. It helps me to have knowledge, wisdom and
morality. It let me understand what life is, and how to have a real peace
within myself, society, countries and the world. Through my knowledge, I know
that it is the right thing to do when I give value to other people, respect
their beliefs and to live with others in peace. I also have a chance to educate
people to have peace in mind too. For example, I share what I have learned in
class whether the definition of peace, the ways to find peace, the mechanism to
conflict resolution and how to cultivate inner peace.
However, all above three influences
are just an option. We have freedom to choose and free of all influences. We
can avoid conflict by conducting peace. I now can solve my inner problems
because I have revealed it and dark cloud will never stay in my mind any more. Understanding
and recognizing my childhood experience help me look for and find the truth
about myself. Of course, things can hurt us physically or emotionally and can
cause sorrow, but our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt
at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge
our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult
circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well. Through our
self-awareness and conscience, I become conscious of areas of weakness, areas
for improvement, areas of talent that could be developed, areas that need to be
changed or eliminated from my life. Then, as I recognize and use my
self-awareness, I am making promises, setting goals, and effort to build the
strength of character, the being that makes possible every other positive thing
in my lives. I set a goal and work to achieve it. As I make and keep
commitments, I begin to accept more of the responsibility for my own lives. By
making and keeping promises to myself and others, little by little, I hope my
honor becomes greater than my moods. The power to make and keep commitments to
ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits of effectiveness.[4]
To upgrade my capacity and since I am
interested in peace field, I have found favorable ways to become peace-builder.
I decided to work as volunteer in peace organization because I believe that I
can engage myself more in generating and keeping peace for society. I started
volunteer work in YFP and now I am sure that I am ready to be an active
peace-builder. Volunteer work, like most undertakings, is beginning to assume a
more professionalized character.[5]
Through this belief, I will try to spread peace as much as I can either in my
country or the world. I can say now my level of inner peace is higher than
before and I have a strong hope that I will use it in a very effective way.
Although being a peace-builder faces many challenges, including overload of
social work, threat, lack of support, or becoming victim of violence, I still have
firm commitment towards it. Although in the future I work for private company,
government sector or NGOs, I will use it to connect with others. It is true
that peace can apply everywhere. It does not matter where we are or what
organization we are working in, we still can hold and present as a
peace-builder.
All in all, as we live in the same
world that is full of opposite interest and desire, and there is a lot of
negative energy and craziness in this world, we still can all learn to live
with inner peace. If our intention is strong and comes from the deepest part of
us, it will happen. Outwardly, nothing changes; peace comes from making changes
inside us. Just like ancient Chinese words from a great philosophy, Lao Tzu who
teaches us to do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great
things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a
single step.[6] We
have to put our intention, willingness and commitment into implementation or
real practice. We will not achieve our goal if we just do it in our
imagination.
[1] Carl
Rogers. Self Theory of Personality Development. Retrived from http://www.scribd.com/doc/106376148/Carl-Rogers-Theory-of-Personality
[2] Drucker
F. Peter :Leader to Leader. Frances Hesselbein and Paul M.Cohen. Jossey-Bass,
California.
[3]
Philip Wilkinson. Religion
[4] Stephen
R. Covey. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
[5] Drucker
F. Peter :Leader to Leader. Frances Hesselbein and Paul M.Cohen. Jossey-Bass,
California.
[6]
Lao Tzu: Success Quotes
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