“If It Costs You Your Peace, It Is Too Expensive”

If doing something requires you to lose your sense of peace, it is not worth doing. In the end, material things and accolades don’t hold a candle to being at peace with the life you have lived. Losing your sense of peace will cost you more in the long run, and especially at the end of your life when you are looking back at it.

I dob’t know what Paulo Coehlo had in mind exactly when he said this quote, but I believe that he would agree that the gist of it is that being all to look yourself in the eye and be proud is more important that any wealth or accolades you can get through doing things the wrong way.

One should note that almost every single human being who has ever lived, and will ever live, will be forgotten but all of humanity relatively soon after they die. Do you really want to trade your soul to do something that nobody will care about in a matter of years or decades?

And it’s not just about doing something immoral. This is just as much for the people who push themselves past exhaustion just so they can maintain an appearance. Measure how much you put in to maintain that appearance. And then measure how much time and adoration you get from your peers as a result. It’s pretty lopsided, isn’t it?

Being happy with the simple, yet important, things in life is the greatest wealth you can have. It’s the mundane, day to day things that make for a great life, not the one in a million achievement you hope to have to make other people love you.

Everyone has their scale of what is important to them in life. So in a sense, I cannot tell you what to focus on. But sacrificing your happiness or morality is surely too high a price to pay, no matter what the rewards are.