Mind­ful­ness is the key to peace. Whether we are seek­ing or hop­ing for world peace or look­ing for calm and self-reg­u­la­tion for our­selves, the in­ner in­di­vid­ual men­tal work is the most im­por­tant as­pect to at­tain­ing both those goals. It will be peace­ful peo­ple who will make a peace­ful world, so as long as we con­tin­ue to live in con­flict from dis­cor­dant lives, ag­griev­ed his­to­ries, bel­liger­ent geopol­i­tics, or oth­er bale­ful con­di­tions, peace will es­cape us.

We some­times joke and say that the win­ning an­swer to any in­ter­na­tion­al pageant is to re­spond us­ing the phrase “world peace” re­gard­less of what is be­ing asked. And there may be mer­it there, giv­en the thun­der­ous ap­plause any con­tes­tant gets to such a re­ply, clear­ly in­dica­tive of a yearn­ing for the peace so glibly es­poused.

Peace is a glob­al goal. Glob­al peace is wide­ly de­fined as the “ide­al state of har­mo­ny, co-op­er­a­tion, and ab­sence of vi­o­lent con­flict among all peo­ple and na­tions,” ex­tend­ing be­yond just not hav­ing war to in­clude “so­cial jus­tice, eco­nom­ic eq­ui­ty, cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing, and ef­fec­tive sys­tems for non-vi­o­lent con­flict res­o­lu­tion and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.”

There is even a day in recog­ni­tion of this goal. In 1981, the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Peace, al­so called World Peace Day, was es­tab­lished and is ob­served an­nu­al­ly on Sep­tem­ber 21. It is “ded­i­cat­ed to peace, and specif­i­cal­ly the ab­sence of war and vi­o­lence, and can be cel­e­brat­ed by a tem­po­rary cease­fire in a com­bat zone”. (un.org).

The as­sess­ment of how much that has helped in ad­vanc­ing world peace over the past four decades, I would leave to oth­ers whose ef­fort is to mea­sure these things. To my mind, though, wars/con­flicts seem to be the fron­trun­ner.

Peace is al­so a re­gion­al, na­tion­al, com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly goal. In 2025, we in the Caribbean, and es­pe­cial­ly in T&T, have been forced to re­assess our dreamy ex­is­tence, as a bat­tle of words en­sues as to whether we live in a zone of peace. The bound­aries shift as in­di­vid­u­als and in­di­vid­ual Caribbean states and their lead­ers re­de­fine peace.

Main­ly, in that dis­course, we are on­look­ers. No one is ask­ing us, but, from high po­si­tions, lead­ers con­tin­ue to speak on our be­half. And that speak­ing is more akin to pelt­ing stones as they con­tin­ue to throw words pub­licly at each oth­er. These days, that com­mu­ni­ty spir­it of the Caribbean stand­pipe di­a­logue re­al “buss up;” the premise of com­mu­ni­ty bond­ing, and all of us drink­ing from the same sup­ply, wilts.

De­spite what por­tends, how­ev­er, peace of mind has to be the ul­ti­mate goal for every in­di­vid­ual. Imag­ine liv­ing a life in com­plete in­ter­nal calm, free from wor­ry or anx­i­ety, re­gard­less of your ex­ter­nal en­vi­ron­ment.

Pic­ture a life of in­ter­nal har­mo­ny and con­so­nance with oth­ers and the world, a life that re­gards hu­man dig­ni­ty as para­mount, one of com­pas­sion and grace for oth­ers and one­self, mar­ried with self-ac­cep­tance, al­to­geth­er al­low­ing you to re­main re­silient de­spite life’s chal­lenges.

It is in this and on­ly in the re­al­i­sa­tion of that lev­el of in­ter­nal set­tle­ment that glob­al or com­mu­ni­ty peace is re­posed. That is my opin­ion.

In­ner peace is a sac­ri­fi­cial and no­ble pur­suit. This in­ner peace, ac­cord­ing to calm.com, is “a state of tran­quil­li­ty where you feel at ease with your­self, oth­ers, and the world around you. It’s about be­ing ful­ly present and com­fort­able in your skin.”

The year 2025 has taught me that in­ner peace brings a clar­i­ty like noth­ing else can, and both sec­u­lar and re­li­gious philoso­phies and doc­trines to which I sub­scribe agree on its cen­tral­i­ty. I have had to use mind­ful­ness to cre­ate bal­ance, and sub­mis­sion to scrip­tures to en­joy the promised “peace that pass­es un­der­stand­ing.” In the lat­ter half of the year, I could be heard very of­ten say­ing that God gave me a peace I did not even recog­nise I need­ed.

Pur­sue peace. What­ev­er you do, con­nect with your in­ner sanc­tum and cu­rate tran­quil­li­ty de­spite ex­ter­nal con­flicts. You will thank your­self for the in­vest­ment when you recog­nise that you are nav­i­gat­ing life stress­es with a cen­tred and ac­cept­ing mind.

Go af­ter self-ac­cep­tance and self-com­pas­sion. Crave con­tent­ment, fo­cus on your well-be­ing. Un­der­stand what you need for your own hap­pi­ness and deeply de­sire the feel­ing of com­plete­ness that comes from clar­i­ty of thought, free­dom from anx­i­ety, and the sep­a­ra­tion from the fear of judge­ment.

When you ex­pe­ri­ence in­ner peace, says calm.com, “you ac­cept who you are—your strengths, flaws, de­sires, dreams—every­thing that makes you unique­ly you. You al­so feel more ac­cept­ing of the world around you and the sit­u­a­tions that are un­fold­ing, so you’re less neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by anx­i­ety, wor­ry, and stress.”

Of in­ner peace, the web­site says it is “equa­nim­i­ty in ac­tion,” defin­ing equa­nim­i­ty as a learned skill which helps one keep a calm and bal­anced state of mind, re­gard­less of shift­ing cir­cum­stances. You re­main lev­el whether your en­vi­ron­ment is or is not sta­ble.

Mind­ful­ness—pay­ing at­ten­tion to what is go­ing on in­side and out­side our­selves, mo­ment by mo­ment—is the key to peace and 2026 is go­ing to de­mand we pay at­ten­tion.

Hap­py New Year!