I was talking with a friend yesterday and she turned to me and said, “you know, Jon, I can’t help but notice that you seem so grounded these days, you seem to be at peace.” I was surprised by this, I have never thought of myself that way. My mind is quite often a raging inferno of images, regrets, resentments, obligations and worries. But when I thought about it, I saw that she is right in some ways, to some degree. In many respects,  I have never been more challenged in my life than I am now. In others, I have never been more at peace.

I do not panic about life any more, I am more accepting of it. I was never great at being young, I like being older in a lot of ways. I am finally understanding my life. No one can predict how life will evolve, but as of today, as of right now, I am closer to peace than ever, and peace of mind has  was one of the prime goals of my spiritual life. And what do I mean by peace?

I have fewer big decisions to make about my life. I know who I am going to be with, I know where I am going to be, I know what I am going to be. I have come to see, rather than just say, that the perfect life is not perfect. I have plenty of things to face in my life, great challenges, the great drama of aging well and wisely. I intend to be an author, to be relevant in the face of radical change. I intend to control the process by which I grow older and eventually die, and one of the great creative challenges will be to have a good death, not a death that others define for me. More importantly, I intend to live well and fully in the meantime, and to do good creative work for a good while.

So peace for me means clarity. And confidence. I have learned what it is to be authentic, or to try, to face up to myself, to find love and to learn to be honest. I am not struggling with me, or with my relation to the world. It is peaceful. It feels good.