Decide first what you want, before the ego does !

Life has a habit of surprising us.

Not always in the “how lovely” kind of way.

The coffee spills. The phone freezes. Someone sends a message

that can be interpreted in at least six alarming ways. Traffic suddenly decides to exist exactly when you’re already late.

A Course in Miracles is refreshingly honest about this:

this is what life feels like when the ego is your guide.

The ego has a very simple strategy.

First, let something happen.

Then panic, judge, defend, complain, or rehearse a brilliant argument in your head that you’ll never actually use.

The Course offers something radically different and almost mischievously simple:

Set the goal first.

Not the goal of fixing the situation or of being right, and definitely not the goal of controlling everything and everyone.

The goal the ego could never give you.

Peace.

“Whatever the situation, take a moment to choose peace.”

That sounds lovely… until you try it in real life.

Because usually we do this the other way around.

We look at the situation, decide what it means, feel the emotions, build the story and then ask whether peace is still an option.

ACIM says: Why not decide first?

Not knowing yet how things will work out. Not pretending everything is fine.

Just deciding, quietly: I want peace more than I want this drama.

Here’s where it gets practical.

Someone cuts you off in traffic.

The ego immediately jumps in: Unbelievable. People are idiots. This is personal.

But if peace is the goal, the same moment becomes…..interesting.

Not a battle to win, but a reminder: Oh right, this again. Do I want peace, or do I want a full-body stress response over a stranger in a car?

Or take a modern classic: the unread message.

You see it. You wait. Nothing happens.

The ego starts writing novels.

Did I say something wrong? Are they upset? Should I send another message? Or twelve?

If peace is the goal, you notice the tension without feeding it.

You might still act. You might still send a message, but you don’t let your inner narrator run the show.

Even small things work perfectly as classrooms.

The washing machine stops mid-cycle.

The internet goes down.

The checkout line chooses today to move at a meditative pace.

If the goal is control, this is a bad day.

If the goal is peace, it’s… inconvenient, but workable.

This is what the Course means when it says:

“The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen.”

In other words:

The situation doesn’t decide your inner state.

Your goal does.

Peace isn’t something that arrives after the problem is solved.

It’s a decision that comes before the interpretation.

That’s why the ego can’t offer it. The ego depends on conditions.

Peace does not.

Choosing peace doesn’t mean nothing ever goes wrong again.

It means things go wrong without immediately turning into a personal crisis.

You still live your life.You still deal with forms, but you do it with a little more space, a little less urgency, and far fewer imaginary emergencies.

Sometimes the most spiritual moment of the day isn’t meditation.

It’s that tiny pause where you notice yourself gearing up for reaction and think:

“Oh… I could choose peace instead.”

Not heroically. Not perfectly. Just gently. And that’s often enough to let the day breathe again.

With love and light,

G.