Can someone have peace when the water he showers gives him a skin rush?

I have lately got caught up in learning about peace and particularly the idea of positive peace that focuses on more than just the absence of war. For example, one may wonder why a country like Japan that has not had a war in decades still struggles to attain total peace, reflected by its increasing suicidal rates. 

My attention, however, was greater to countries like Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan that are sharing the river Nile. Whatever happens to this river directly affects the population. We hear of one country downstream refusing that upstream to build a dam just because it will affect its population's access to enough water. You can imagine such a situation where something within your ownership (even on a personal level) affects another, that you cannot really use it the way you want. If this is to show anything, it is the idea that individualism is unnecessary in matters of achieving holistic peace in communion with the environment.

In the previous decades when we cut down trees without thinking about the environment, we drifted further and further from peace. Every wrong turn throughout history locked us into ourselves, individualism to say, and this is when we thought that nature and environment were not really a big deal to our survival. 

Today’s environmental crisis is a powerful symbol of our corporate destruction. Our actions throughout history prove that we humans just choose to destroy ourselves, because if it were otherwise, we would not be cutting down trees when we know it causes drought. The people who lived before us must have known this but perhaps, in their eyes, it was not going to affect them anyway. As long as their businesses bloomed, the generations to come were to take care of themselves, and yes, this explains our struggles today. Will you also give in to passing on even greater struggles to future generations? 

It is recently that we have realized we were wrong then because of the consequences now. For instance, the standards of living get higher with time as we need to install air conditioners to overcome global warming’s high temperatures and having to apply sunscreen during summer. 

However, the good news is that today’s generation is trying so hard to reverse the flow and break the cycle. The world is in a state of changing human history and only when the human-environment relationship is changed can we imagine new things becoming concretely possible. But like I said, unselfishness is principal, as each one of us gets to play his or her part while not thinking only about self, but others too. You don't have to think of rigorous things to make an impact, simple yet immediate actions like reducing your carbon footprint do count!

It's is the very magic of nature to bring people together. Today, countries come together to find solutions to environmental issues. This is also manifested in our communities, which brings unity and harmony. 

I know it is hard to make sense of this article in terms of the extent to which conserving the environment promotes peace, especially in an individual perspective, but its okay to take action along these regards even before fully understanding it all, it is a safe bet of no regrets. I only hope that this triggers your curiosity in discovering more about how your peace connects to your natural environment, because it is true that what you find by yourself means a lot more, sticks around you and influences your actions more that when you hear it from another.