On the delayed exhale, the someday serenity we keep postponing—until we ‘finish’, ‘fix’, or ‘earn’ it.
I remember once walking through a friend’s newly built home—a beautiful, airy space with soft lights and wide windows that welcomed the morning sun. Everything was thoughtfully placed, yet something felt incomplete. She noticed my gaze and said, “I’m waiting to buy a few more things before I can really settle in.”
A few months later, I visited again. The home looked the same. She smiled and said, “Work’s been hectic, and the kids’ exams came up. I’ll get to it soon. I want it to feel perfect.”
A year passed. Another visit. Still the same corners, still the same waiting.
We do this, don’t we?
We carry an image of peace as a future milestone—a reward we can unwrap only once we’ve solved, achieved, or organized something.
We say:
“Once I complete this project…”
“Once I’m more fit…”
“Once the children are settled…”
“Once I find clarity…”
But the list never ends. The calendar keeps filling. Life keeps shifting. And peace remains something we defer, like a gentle song we tell ourselves we’ll listen to after the noise ends.
What if peace isn’t the finish line, but something that quietly walks beside us—waiting to be noticed?
What if peace is not a grand achievement, but a small permission we give ourselves in the middle of ordinary chaos?
Like allowing silence between conversations.
Or stepping outside to feel the breeze without checking our phones.
Or eating a meal slowly, without solving life between bites.
Or simply saying, “This is enough for today.”
We’ve mistaken peace for perfection. But peace often lives in the messy middle—between deadlines, in traffic jams, during the waiting seasons of life.
It does not demand a fixed setting.
It only asks for presence.
I’ve learned that postponing peace doesn’t make us more accomplished. It just makes us more exhausted.
And in that exhaustion, we begin to lose touch with what we were striving for in the first place.
So here’s a gentle invitation: What peace have you postponed? And what if, just for today, you allowed it in—right here, right now, just as things are?
Let it not be something you arrive at someday.
Let it be something you return to, breath by breath.
Letters for the Inner Journey by Pushkar
Whisper back, if the letter spoke to you.