Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace?

"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not." -Eckhart Tolle

Yes! I have finally found the answer to the question so many people keep asking me now that my life has changed yet again. Everyone wants to know if I am happy and I have been finding it difficult to answer them in a way that made sense until I read this quote. Everything inside of me lit up because I finally understand how and what I am feeling.

So many of us spend our lives chasing happiness. And when we find it, we try so hard to hold onto it, we lose the moment of complete bliss because we are too focused on what happiness is meant to feel like rather than surrendering to it and enjoying it.

I know with absolute certainty that happiness and inner peace are two very different feelings. Happiness is conditional. Inner peace is not. Happiness comes and goes. Inner peace does not. Happiness is an emotion that cannot and will not remain. Inner peace is a state of being that just is. Happiness is judgemental. Inner peace is not.

I am so relieved to understand what it is that I am experiencing. I thought it was a numbness. A lack of passion. Yet I feel content with where I am in my life. Assured that I am where I am meant to be. Calm in the eye of the storm. Following my inner voice. Doing what I have to do. Not questioning. Not resisting. Just being. Doing. Flowing.

So for anyone who asks now I have an answer. I am more than happy could ever be because I have found an inner peace so solid and full of light that even when it is dark outside and I lose my way I know that if I focus I will find my path again. Happiness is fleeting. Inner Peace is forever. 

“Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see.”