If you want to know about living a peaceful life, just knock on your inner doors—your real self, your innocent mind, your pure emotions, your soul. The knowledge is there, waiting to be tapped: a full, simple, and joyful life awaits you. If you pay attention to commercials, television shows, and movies, you would believe that "having it all" is what makes life full. As a society we are obsessed with our outer selves, our looks, hair, clothes, jewelry, and other ornaments. But these things don't bring inner peace. The Bible says, Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. (1 Peter 3:3-4)

We are preoccupied equally with our bodies--our muscles, our waists, our contours. It is fine and desirable to exercise to stay fit, but it's not fine to make it an obsession. Relentlessly amassing possessions, joining clubs and other organizations, and attending parties may seem like a full life, but it is only a busy life. The moment obsessive pursuits are interrupted through losses or illness, the moment you can no longer busy yourself with those preoccupations, a gigantic hole in that "full life" emerges. The emptiness that follows keeps enlarging, generating an unbearable anxiety, threatening to cause the self to cave into a vacuum.