If you've ever played cards, you know there's a lot to be said about the luck of the draw.

Sure, skill factors into it, and can improve our odds considerably. But when it comes down to it, the biggest single factor of success are the cards we're dealt.

Life's a lot like that. We've got to somehow find peace despite the hand life deals us -- and despite our "success" (or lack of it) at playing the game as our world says it must be played.

This is especially important in this day and age as the world we've known disintegrates before our eyes.

The resulting emotional turmoil is a gut-wrenching roller coaster ride that seems never-ending. And there's no way to get off.

Try as we might, our fate is not to find a way out but to learn to live within the turbulent energies and use them to move into a state of love and acceptance of ourselves as well as whatever happens in our lives and the world around us.

No matter whether our lives are turned upside down or inside out by the circumstances of life, peace is always within our reach.

Our job is to find it and grab hold tightly. And use it to master the challenge put before us once and for all.

Otherwise, who's to say that we'll have peace even if we we're still here?