The Magic of Acceptance3 min read
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Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.
– Gautama Buddha
Accepting things the way they are is a very simple concept.
Something happens in your world, and you either accept it or you argue with it.
If you accept it, then you are dealing with reality.
Your car died on the highway during rush hour.
Your expenses were higher than you anticipated this month.
Your doctor tells you that you have prostate cancer.
You can’t change those things. They are what is.
Now, of course, it’s natural to react to things like this with frustration, anger or even despair.
But it’s not natural to argue with reality. When we do that, it only makes things worse.
“Damn car, it shouldn’t break down like this.”
“My expenses shouldn’t be that high. Something is wrong.”
“I should have taken more vitamins and I wouldn’t have cancer.”
Arguing with reality is denying that what is happening is real.
And when you do that, you lose your power to take effective action.
When you accept what is, what happened, you can simply deal with reality.
“Here I am on the highway. Glad I have AAA!”
“Hmm, I guess it’s time to track my expenses more closely.”
“Well, time to learn everything I can to combat this cancer.”
Accepting things the way they are is not resignation.
It doesn’t mean that when something bad happens that you can’t take effective action.
It doesn’t mean that if things happen contrary to your plans that things are hopeless.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t work on discovering a new way to do something.
I was in business for 39 years as an independent professional.
And I promise you, things went wrong all the time!
I had lots of cash flow problems in my first ten years in business.
I’d try a marketing strategy I thought was brilliant and it flopped.
I’d turn myself inside out to help a client and sometimes failed.
But over time, I learned the art of accepting what is.
When something didn’t work, I’d just try something else.
When I had credit problems, I learned to budget more carefully.
When I lost a client, I worked to learn from my mistake.
There are so many motivational things I read about.
Find a purpose and set meaningful goals.
Understand exactly what the client wants and give it to them.
Persist and persevere until you succeed.
Well, nothing wrong with any of those, but without mastering acceptance, none of those things really work.
Until you learn to simply accept the reality of what is, you will always struggle.
But when you make acceptance a priority, your life transforms.
In that acceptance, the space opens up effortlessly for the next action, discovery or result.
What is something happening in your life right now that you are having trouble accepting?
What possibilities might open up if you came to accept your situation?
Cheers, Robert
“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom
fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart.”
– Marcus Aurelius
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