Some people’s lives allow them to pause.
They can switch off their phones at nine, light a candle, and call it self-care.
They wake up to quiet mornings and end their days with calm playlists and silk pyjamas.
Their peace has space to stretch.

And then there are others. The parents, caregivers, breadwinners, and professionals holding five worlds at once.
They are the first to wake and the last to rest, often running on caffeine, prayer, and pure survival instinct.
Their peace isn’t scented; it’s stolen.
It lives between traffic lights, homework, and deadlines.
If sleep were a university course, they’d be auditing it part-time.

Somewhere in the middle are the rest of us, half calm, half chaos, managing emotions and electricity bills side by side.

Because let’s be honest, peace sounds simple until life starts lifing.

For some, peace is an early bedtime.
For others, it’s five quiet minutes in the car before the next school run.
For some, it’s journaling and affirmations.
For others, it’s just seeing NEPA light come on at the same time as their sanity.
Some people light candles; others light generators.
Both are valid forms of hope.

There are people fighting silent battles, physical, mental, and emotional, who can’t rest in the Instagram sense of the word.
There are single parents carrying homes on their backs, professionals clocking 14-hour days with smiles they’ve ironed on, and caregivers balancing love and exhaustion like a full tray of jollof in traffic.

Not everyone has the luxury of a slow life. Some are just trying to survive one day at a time.

And it’s not that they don’t want peace; it’s that peace, for them, comes in microdoses, like Wi-Fi that works only when the router feels generous.

Maybe peace isn’t one-size-fits-all.
It’s personal.
It’s contextual.
It depends on your stage, your salary, and sometimes your children’s homework load.

For some, peace feels like silk, soft, scented, uninterrupted.
For others, it’s denim, stretched, hardworking, and never quite still.
But both are real. Both are valid.

Maybe peace isn’t something we find, but something we manage, like data.
Unlimited for some, rationed for others, but everyone trying to make it last till month’s end.

The older you get, the more you realise peace isn’t always quiet.
Sometimes it’s laughing when crying would make more sense.
Sometimes it’s saying no when yes would be easier.
Sometimes it’s closing your eyes in church, not to pray, but to rest your spirit for two sacred minutes.

For those living with illness or burnout, peace can mean simply getting through the day, breath by breath, prayer by prayer.
That counts too.
Because peace doesn’t always come in long stretches. Sometimes it arrives in fragments, like those moments between generator sounds when the world goes still.

So maybe the goal isn’t to find peace, but to hold it, however it comes.
For some, it’s a nap that actually works.
For others, it’s a laugh that lasts longer than the problem.

And for those whose lives are loud, the ones carrying homes, hearts, and hope on their backs, may their peace visit them softly, even if only for a moment.

And if anyone has the gift of calm, the ability to pause, breathe, and reset, may they hold gratitude, not guilt.
Because peace, when you can afford it, isn’t proof of superiority. It’s proof of privilege.

The real test is what we do with it.
Do we use our calm to show grace?
Do we make room for those who can’t stop moving?
Do we extend kindness to those whose lives never pause?

Because peace doesn’t need to look perfect; it just needs to exist somewhere.
Even if it’s in the chaos of a kitchen, the quiet of a commute, or the laughter after tears.

Peace, in the end, isn’t about silence or soft music.
It’s about grace, stretched, flawed, human grace, that reminds us we’re still here, doing our best, one deep breath (and one NEPA outage) at a time.

Ada Obiajunwa
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Ada Obiajunwa writes from Lagos about the big truths tucked inside ordinary moments — friendship, self-discovery, and the quiet revolutions of everyday life. She believes in the power of presence, good banter, and decoding the unsaid. Through her fragrance studio, WhiffWonders, she also crafts scents that weave memory and emotion into experiences that feel like home.