Do you want Peace or Drama?

I wish I could take credit for writing this, but it is from the book, A New Earth : Awakening to your Life's Purpose. I think I have mentioned before how much I enjoyed this book. This book is about getting to the core of your ego and letting go of the attachment to create personal happiness. He writes how being attached to your ego leads to dysfunction, anger, jealousy, and unhappiness.

One of my favorite Sub Chapters is "Do you want Peace or Drama?" Pg 77
Here is an excerpt:

"You want peace. There is no one who does not want peace. Yet there is something else in you that wants the drama, wants the conflict. You may not be able to feel it at this moment. You may have to wait for a situation or even just a thought that triggers a reaction in you: someone accusing you of this or that, not acknowledging you, encroaching on your territory, questioning the way you do things, an argument about money ...
Can you then feel the enormous surge of force moving through you, the fear, perhaps being masked by anger or hostility? Can you hear your own voice becoming harsh or shrill, or louder and a few octaves lower? Can you be aware of your mind racing to defend its position, justify, attack, blame? In other words, can you awaken at that moment of unconsciousness?
Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?"

"If peace is really what you want, then you will choose peace. If pace mattered to you more than anything else and if you truly knew yourself to be spirit rather than a little me, you would remain nonreactive and absolutely alert when confronted with challenging people or situations. You would immediately accept the situation and thus become one with it rather than separate yourself from it." - Page 188

I know people who have made themselves sick with jealousy. Those who have stressed over anger and situations that they can not control. Sometimes things are dreadful and justify bringing attention to them. But, with the power of consciousness, you can turn the negative energy into a positive resolution. By focusing on it, we in fact, magnify it. I most especially find frustration when people around me, complain and rant only spreading a germ of negative attitudes. Go ahead and state the problem, but think positively in it.
I believe in and encourage others in this mantra: Don’t complain unless you’re going to do something about it. If you’re going to complain about a problem, offer a solution. If you want to criticize someone else’s work, a project or situation, don’t just do so in negativity, but offer feedback for improvement. Don’t contribute to the turmoil.
Be aware of how you react with your Ego in response to the negativity around you. Decide not to live in addiction of unhappiness, but rather find a harmonious state of peace and joy even in the midst of the unrest around you. Negativity festers and feeds off others. As the old saying goes, ‘Misery loves company.’ This is how we, both as individuals and as a collective society, create and carry regrets, anger and grudges.
Sorry for a deep post....but its just my thoughts lately. Especially about the jealousy aspect. Be happy for who you are and what you have rather than what you don't. You know there have been some shitty things that have happpened in my life. Do I dwell on that? No. Of course not. Why let something that has happened in my past disrupt my future happiness?