It has become increasingly obvious that there are people in this world who just don’t want you to succeed or be happy in life. That is the reality of things. Some people will go out of their way to cause you trouble, just because they can or because they aren’t satisfied with their own life. Some people will cause drama and mess with the goodness you have going in life just because they don’t have it and feel like you shouldn’t have it then. It could be a secret hater, a significant other, an ex-lover, a family member, a toxic “friend”, a coworker, or it could be someone you don’t even really know, a literal stranger to you.

Life is full of people who will try to ruin your peace if you let them.

Which makes protecting your peace vital nowadays. Vital for your own sanity and happiness.

What does it mean to protect your peace? Well, it’s different for everyone, but it all boils down to doing what you need to do to be happy. Happy with yourself, happy with where you are in life, and happy with who is in your life. It’s the act of prioritizing yourself and your happiness. Aka, putting you first and not letting someone else affect your happiness. In a world full of toxicity, it’s incredibly challenging to do that. Protecting your peace isn’t something everyone naturally does. In fact, a lot of people don’t even know how to do it and that leaves them stuck in a continuous cycle of unhappiness. It’s something you learn and takes a conscious effort to do, but then you also need to know when to do it.

Everyone is different when it comes to what they are willing to accept from others. Some people are more strict and have less tolerance for things. That’s me, I’m fiercely protective of my peace so I don’t tolerate others trying to mess with it. We could be close friends one minute and the moment I notice you starting messing up my vibe, I’ll exit the chat real quick. However, some people are more lenient and will tolerate a lot more, even if they shouldn’t. So, knowing when to protect your peace is subjective, but it’s something that should be done.

It is easy to let someone mess up the good things you have going for you in life, especially when you aren’t walking around prepared for someone to do it or prepared to handle it. It’s all about being self-aware, knowing when someone is affecting your happiness, and being strong enough to do something about it.

When you don’t protect your peace it leads to others easily making you miserable. If you keep giving chance after chance, making exception after exception, and letting stuff go, you’ll drain yourself. People won’t respect boundaries if you don’t enforce any. People will keep doing the bad stuff unless you stop them. Protecting your peace is not about just setting boundaries, it’s about not letting others ruin the goodness you have going on and loving yourself enough to clock it when you notice someone is.

Speaking from personal experience, I didn’t start to feel genuinely happy in life until I started to protect my peace. The stress from having bad friends around, the constant anger from dealing with toxic family members, the self-doubt from entertaining an immature guy, all of that disappeared once I clocked that these things were making me unhappy in some way.

I aim to live my best life, shimmering and glowing from the happiness within. I want to walk past someone and they can just tell I’m happy. Which is why I’m more than willing to defend my happiness from people trying to ruin it.

I think everyone should have this mindset in life. What do you think?