True Peace - from Ancient Faith blogs

I've been reading the collection of Elder Thaddeus' called 'Our Thoughts Determine our Lives' and much of his advice echoes the link above.

The Elder notes that we always start in the wrong place by trying to change others instead of ourselves.

Instead of turning our mind to prayer and developing inner peace that radiates outward, we turn our mind to the thoughts and arguments of men and are constantly churned up and angry. We spend hours per day thinking about what other people think or do, but how much time do we spend in prayer?

This is a recipe for becoming stressed and irritable. We can easily make ourselves miserable and we become strict towards others. We transform into the Pharisee, constantly judging other people and the world for not acting and thinking as we think God would wish.