Procrastinating Peace

You accidentally touch a hot stove and your hand recoils instantly—no deliberation required. The body’s pain threshold operates with automatic efficiency.

Yet consider psychological suffering. How long do we endure mental anguish before changing course? Years? Decades? Lifetimes?

We possess a remarkable capacity for tolerating inner distress. Anxiety becomes familiar background noise. Resentment transforms into comfortable companionship. Judgment feels justified, even righteous. We’ve developed sophisticated systems for managing misery rather than questioning its source.

Here’s what makes this tolerance so peculiar: we know something feels wrong. We sense there’s another way to experience life. Yet we postpone the investigation. We defer the most important inquiry we could make.

Why? Because our ability to accommodate suffering remains surprisingly high. We’ve learned to live with sorrow, to organize our entire existence around its management.

Thankfully, as A Course in Miracles reveals, “Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way.”

This isn’t resignation or despair. It’s the first genuine glimpse beyond our carefully constructed defenses. What follows isn’t more of the same dressed in spiritual language. It’s a fundamental shift in what we’re willing to see. The imprisoned will that created our suffering begins loosening its grip—not through force, but through simple recognition that we’re the ones holding the keys.

Join me in Thursday’s class where we’ll explore why we procrastinate peace and discover what becomes possible when we choose a better way. I look forward to seeing you then.