I Only Have One Goal. That Goal is Peace

If you have one goal in life, let it be peace. In everything you do, make sure that peace is a byproduct for you and the people you interact with. We must realize when peace is diminished to ensure peace and greet peace with the sun’s rising. Peace is gone when there are power dynamics. There is no peace when a person believes they are separate from you, thus believing one has power over the other. I’ve never had peace when a manager felt they could tell me what to do. I never really felt peace when my parents did the same thing. No one wants to do anything out of obligation. We find true peace when we gift our actions and intentions to others. There is no peace in separation. Separation only brings exploitation and power struggles. To remedy this, we must realize that we are all one.

Where Does Peace Come From?

Peace comes from win-win situations. This is the definition of justice. No one should ever feel like they are sacrificing in a relationship. Most people start off a relationship with what they want from it. Conflict begins when we are selfish from the outset. It’s wild because the other person is doing the exact thing while thinking about how this relationship will benefit you. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Yet, it’s counter-culture to the competitive idea of “winning.”

When I was interviewing for the director position I received, the owner only saw me as a tool he could use. I didn’t recognize that until hours of reflection on the process after I had left. He basically only asked me questions about the skills and experience I had. All pretty typical questions when it comes to interviews. However, I found it weird that he asked the same questions when I had my second interview with him. I don’t think he truly wanted to get to know me. He wanted to gain my experience for his company and lured me in with a title and a salary.

Transactional Relationships

It’s not his fault because, on the other end of things, I was looking for nothing more than that. One would call that a win-win, but neither of us really cared about the needs of each other. I didn’t care enough about my needs to see the warning flags. When we dive into any relationship for ourselves, it’s tough to trust and be vulnerable to communicate our needs. People will ultimately see others as disposable once they get what they seek.

Being in a relationship is hard when we don’t prioritize ourselves. If someone doesn’t advocate for me, who will? When we get into a relationship, let’s shift our focus from this question and ask what we can do with the other person that brings mutual benefit. The perfect anecdote here might be dating. Many people my age say they are tired of playing games or don’t want their time wasted. What does that mean? It means that they want a mutually beneficial relationship. Time is wasted when a person gets what they want but leaves their partner yearning for something they asked for. A one-night stand wastes time for the person who was promised a relationship. This type of betrayal only breeds mistrust.

Teamwork

Teamwork only happens when everyone in the team pushes towards an agreed-upon, singular goal. The players on your favorite sports team benefit from each other because they all have the same goal of winning the game. I have worked in departments where there are multiple goals. If I needed someone else to do something that didn’t fit their goals, the usual thing is to not do it. Why would they? The work doesn’t benefit their goals. Using multiple goals for different teammates separates the team, which no longer means they are a team. When we move towards our north star, we freely give our effort and expertise because each step brings us closer to what we want to achieve. It’s probably impossible, but I wish that goal was always peace.

Win-Win Relationships

There are many ways to create and maintain win-win relationships with everyone. First, we need to be selfless. We talked about this when defining love. That part should be easy. The next thing to do is be an active listener. You can’t know the other person’s needs if you’re not listening to them. When you’re listening, you’re finding things that will be mutually beneficial for all that is involved. Once we find these mutual benefit points, we do them without keeping the score.

There can be no peace without equity. We want to create win-win relationships with everyone, but that doesn’t mean equality. Equality infers that everyone gets the same thing, but not everyone needs the same things. It’s important to treat individuals as individuals to learn their specific needs. By doing this, we believe everything we have and need is abundant. There’s no need to be selfish with our love, joy, and peace because all will come back to us. By creating these win-win relationships, we hope to better connect with everyone we come across. We want to connect better with our classmates and those we work with. We can even connect better with the person we try not to look at in the elevator. This principle allows us to create genuine relationships and find peace by connecting. Finding peace when you’re alone is easy, but we need people. We will have peace if we can create genuine relationships with the people we need.