Why does it seem so hard to do then ?

Peace : According to the dictionary

peace (n)

   1. The absence of war or other hostilities.
   2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
   3. Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations: roommates living in peace with each other.
   4. Public security and order: was arrested for disturbing the peace.
   5. Inner contentment; serenity: peace of mind.

at peace

   1. In a state of tranquillity; serene: She is at peace with herself and her friends.
   2. Free from strife: Everyone wants to live in a world at peace.

So tranquillity, serenity, sounds like a plan right ? Ok then.. why don't we do so on a daily basis ? Some things to watch for in the human psyche that make this desired state seem so hard to obtain. Some of this, I have said in other missives, but taking a shot at it from another angle.

This is a state of both body and mind at work here. From the body's standpoint, it can be very used to being in a constant state of "fight or flight". It's why one often sees people, literally become ill on their vacations, as they are so used to the inner stress, that its sudden release or lack, disrupts the body. Our physical selves are very good at maintaining homeostasis, and if the state you have asked the body to maintain is stressed out all the time, that's what it tries to do.. maintain that stressed state, as that is normal as far as the body is concerned, as that's the state your in most of the time.

The body will literally aggravate you, dumping the stress chemicals into the bloodstream. Which is why you can find yourself, sitting there, with nothing going on, wondering why your body feels like its dancing a jig on the inside. It literally is, its often the basic reason for things like panic attacks and the like. ( Not the entire reason, but its often one of them, as panic attacks are considered a learned response )

Secondly the mind, we really don't believe in the good days, we honestly expect the other shoe to drop any second now, so when the less stressful moments happen, we not only don't trust them, we go looking for things that are wrong, or we expect to go wrong any second.

Now, this is something we can do on a personal level as long as the other party agrees to end the strife or you change your own reaction to whatever it is they do that stresses you out. Sometimes they wont agree and how to end the problem, is to end the association, or avoid the person,  but however you handle it, it is possible to accomplish this.

Look at more, Freedom from quarrels and disagreement.

This falls right in line with task one, and tends to be the hardest to do, as noted above, we get used to strife, so much so that we go looking for trouble and almost without fail, find it or worse, create it.

Take a look at an example:

I have a friend, who is forever going on about this that or the other thing happening in her life. Now, granted, in her life, and the people in it, she feels she has every reason to do so, as she is surrounded with confrontation and even I will admit, blatantly aggravating people. The problem is, she is so used to doing this, that EVERYTHING even slightly off kilter, becomes a reason to go off on a tangent.

In other words, she makes a crises, where there isn't one, and makes a minor event, into a catastrophe. Ok, why ? One of the possible why's, is she's addicted to the feeling of being all stressed out. It's the only response to events she knows now, so everything is a major event. The reaction of "now is the time to get all upset" is ingrained to the point where it is the only response possible. Not only that, she tends to hang on to things that are considered legitimate grievances, until she beats it to death. Like a dog with a bone, it's almost impossible to get her to give over if she feels slighted. Needless to say she's very difficult to be around :)

Now, why would a person do this to themselves ? As it sounds pretty rough on the body, mind and sprit to boot. And your right, it is, but as to why, the reasons vary.

Another is more complex, as there is a social benefit to be gained by being in crises. We don't tend to think of it that way, but there is. If things are going legitimately wrong in our world, we tend to get sympathy or extra consideration, as we are under stress. Which is perfectly reasonable in real catastrophic events, like a death in the family, sudden illness etc. However, one can, if not careful, want to keep that "benefit" coming, and tend to make everything a crises of equal importance.
( That is, until most of our friends and family are tired of it, as with such people, there is always another crises and it becomes pretty apparent after a while, that things are never normal with the person, that all the help, isn't helping, and the benefits .. stop )

And yet one more, even more complicated, belief that we somehow don't deserve peace. Now, to say that just off hand, makes most people go .. What ? What do you mean, don't deserve it ? Everybody deserves it !

Which you would be right of course, however we often don't think so. How many times have you stopped yourself from feeling happy and at peace, when there is a major event going on ? It somehow feels like a betrayal to be happy, when for example, a short time ago a family member or friend, passed away. The closer the party was to us, the more we tend to sabotage any peacefulness, as it feels like "how can I dare be happy when, X is gone". Now, any caring friend or family member would rise up in sprit, and chide you for even thinking such a thing, but, we do it.

Further, we do it for a great deal less than this extreme reason, we often do it as we don't trust the peace will last, as noted above, and get tired of having the rug yanked out from under us, so we tend to not permit peacefulness, "it's not gonna last anyway and will just hurt when life takes it away", so we don't do it. We become a pessimist and a often a cynic.

You will often find it's a combination of most of the above, so it's a complex issue, but not by any means un-resolvable. The benefits to be gained are many, you will feel better, be healthier, and much more able to conduct your rites and cast spells, as a matter of course. From a tranquil state of mind, you can do almost anything.

As the saying was in my youth, "it's a case of mind over matter, if you don't  mind, it don't matter" , which sounds a bit flip, but, its none the less, true. Everything noted above, is a state of mind, the only body responses are learned behaviors your mind has demanded or created for the body, so it's all a state of mind.

May yours be at peace.