People watching is fun, but catching someone’s eyes unexpectedly is the most enthralling part of it. Most people don’t like it when they catch you watching them; most become uncomfortable, and even friends will turn from your gaze. Some people look right back at you with devious insolence, matching your glance until you both chuckle and look away. Others just glare at you for a moment. And occasionally, you’ll come across a person whose deadset focus is just like yours, and they will watch you in the same way. Whatever their reaction, just two seconds is all it takes to learn a lot about the way an individual sees the world. I don’t mean glancing up at their nose every so often amidst conversation, or even just looking at their eyes. I mean looking into them. I mean watching their spirit through the windows in their faces.

You can learn a lot about how a person looks inwardly at themself by the way they look out of themselves at the world. By the light in their eyes, or the lack thereof; by the shiftiness or laziness of a glance; by the shy flicking up and down, or the nervous side to side; by the very shade across their brow, or the curious weightlessness of it.

Each person is unique, but every so often, you will encounter a person whose eyes take you completely off guard. Only a few have ever had a brightness so strong that I took a step back. A brightness and a joy and a peace about them that is eerily otherworldly (if you’ve met one of these people, you’ll know what I mean), and with these people, you don’t even have to be observant to notice the difference in them. It’s an unbreakable sense of peace and knowing in their eyes. It’s sureness in something deeper. It’s a profound wholeness that stands out in this broken world. It is this way of peace about them that I’ve pondered over. Where does this peace come from?

Only a person who is truly content, through and through, can look out of themselves with such genuine brightness. Yet I’ve found that the brightness of such contentment and peace is not a contentment of this world. It is true contentment of the heart, and this is so rare. On some internal level, I think most of us tell ourselves we are well-off, that we are following our hearts, or that that we are in the right, when in reality our hearts are not fully satisfied. We try to find wholeness in money, in a job, in a relationship, in having control; or to numb the painful insatisfaction in our hearts with alcohol, drugs, friends, or loud music. Many times, seeing such a brightness has caused me to ask myself personally--where does my desire for this peace come from?

The truth is that we are broken beings with bottomless chasms in our hearts, searching in vain for a piece of infinity that we can never reach, for we are living in a world full of dead ends. We are starving mouths with bottomless stomachs for something impossibly beyond ourselves--a peace, and a love, and an answer that we cannot even wholly define for ourselves. No matter how hard we try, we cannot solve ourselves. There is a missing answer to who we are and to the deepest desire for peace in our hearts. Meeting such people who have found such peace--a peace that shines so brightly out of just the touch of their eyes--gives hope that a way to the infinite actually exists.

This is why I believe it to be so incredibly important to be honest with yourself at all times. To ask yourself where your heart’s deepest desires come from. To take those moments of silence. To question what’s real and what’s not in your life. To ask yourself if you actually are alright; because in truth, as humans, we’ll never have it all together. We will never reach that point of perfection on our own--but being honest with yourself is the first step towards finding the Truth that will set aflame a brightness in your eyes. The kind of fire that made you step back in the first place, because you realized it was the brightness you were looking for all along. The kind of fire that gives hope that there really is an answer out there that will bring a person wholeness.

I don’t think that internal peace is about acceptance of your place in life. I don’t think it’s about looking around you and trying to be happy when you’re really not; when there’s a voice in the back of your mind driving you to seek something deeper. While of course, one must be grateful for all that they have, no one should be afraid of thinking there’s something wrong with them for not being happy in a given moment. Don’t listen to those who tell you you ought to be happy. Ask yourself where the deepest desires of your heart come from. Trust in your heart, and know that there’s a reason for any dissatisfaction in your life, and don’t ever accept that as “the best it’ll ever get.” Seek the Truth, until it sets you on fire; until it shows in your eyes; and until it permeates every corner of your life.