Peace Is Every Red Light

I was very impressed by Thich Nhat Hanh's work Peace Is Every Step.  I never really attached to Eastern thought and tradition as much as Western, so I was surprised when I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  I'll admit that I underestimated the book.  Before I began reading, I thought it would be outdated and irrelevant.  I was glad to find out that I was completely wrong.

One of the things that really hit home for me was the idea of finding happiness in things that occur to you multiple times everyday.  The most interesting one I thought was the red light.  How often do we find happiness while waiting at red lights?  Never.  Why should we find happiness there?  The red light is impeding our progress.  It is halting us from living our life.  Thich Nhat Hanh proposed a different way of viewing the red light.  By seeing it as an opportunity to find happiness, it transforms the frustration into something else.  We remember to live in the moment, and find contentment in every moment.  Since I read the work, I've been seeing the red light as not only telling me to stop my car from going through the intersection, but also as stopping my mind, and just being peaceful in the moment.  It definitely makes my drives a little easier.

There are tons of "red lights" in our life.  Any thing that we might be frustrated at, or get stressed over, or angry at, we can turn into a moment of happiness.  We missed the bus or an important call, or maybe our laptop ran out of battery.  Anything that maybe gets in the way, or holds us up for a short time from something else, we can look at in a different way.  I'd invite everyone to find one thing, and for a day, just try to live it out.  Watch, and feel, how much it helps.