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“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

Cheryl Strayed

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Well. What a beautiful thought. ‘Acceptance is a small quiet room.’ There is a. well, nobility within this thought. A nobility found within the attempt and the personalness found in the small room of ‘it is what it is.’ And, actually, there is also nobility found in accepting what you did not do.

It is a nice thought of how to keep some sanity in the everyday world.

It is maybe a version of a more blue-collar Life mentality in that you have to work at Life to handle it all.

You want to progress.

You want to get better.

You want to mature.

You want to grow up and you want to do things a certain way.

But sometimes you can’t get out of your own way either by what you have done … or have not done.

 Some times you cannot get out of your own way through the lack of ability to discern what is important from the unimportant.

“I knew it wasn’t too important, but it made me sad anyway.”

The Catcher in the Rye

Acceptance gives you the opportunity to really step back and look in the mirror and look at your reflection and assess. Maybe more importantly you can become happier with the person that you are — the person you know you can become.

Acceptance permits you to understand there is no going back as well as no going backwards.no turning back

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

The world is not obligated to care. Nor is Life for that matter. And most people will not care or, at least, they won’t when you need them to. Mostly just because they have their own things and problems and issues to deal with. Not because they don’t care. So in your quiet little room you have to store a lot of things:

Accept the choices made.

Accept the choices you didn’t make.

Accept regrets.

Accept successes and failures equally.

Accept joys and sadness.

Accept the things missed and things experienced.

Accept the losses as well as the gains.

Accept the temporary.

Accept the consistent.

Accept reality.

By the way this means acceptance can be equally painful and terrifying as well as relief and calming.

But. Acceptance, in part, is understanding you are … well … adequate. Adequate in that the little quiet room in which you place acceptance is enough for you as a person. And by having this little room you have learned to accept some things:

–          rational thinking is overrated.

Predicting the outcome of any choice is impossible <or pretty close to it>. And, if that choice pertains to the heart or the soul, rational thinking is impractical because the heart and soul are intangible. And certainly not rational.

Life is about making leaps of faith. And nowhere in ‘leap of faith’ will you be able to conjure up ‘rational.’ I imagine I could have simply suggested that, when it comes to Life, control is simply an illusion and that would have sealed the deal on this thought. Because if control is an illusion and rational thinking presumes you are ‘controlling’ in some form or fashion … well … you get it.

–          life is pretty much all in your perspective and how & where you invest energy.

It may not feel this way but almost every one of us has the mental and emotional capacity to truly handle the gut punches Life has a tendency to randomly hit you with, sit back and get your breath back and  process the life lessons <acceptance> and move on. The capacity within all of us to this is basically because we keep it all in perspective and learn how & when to invest energy. If we didn’t figure it out? You would probably see people spontaneously implode on a daily basis. They don’t. Therefore we keep perspective and use our energy fairly wisely.

–          you are doing your best with what is available to you at any given point in time.

unlearning choice_previewYou are typically doing the best you can.

Accept this.

Looking backwards you will always … ALWAYS … glare at ‘your best’ and wag your finger and say ‘not good enough.’ But in the moment? You typically do the best you can. That’s all that we can do. No one can expect any more than that.

–          your vision of the way life ‘should be’ greatly impedes progress in the way life really is.

Without even realizing it, we tend to go into a Life default mode therefore placing subconscious expectations and random boundaries on who we think we are and our lives. By doing so we inadvertently set ourselves up for a disappointing life. One in which we can’t understand why we aren’t ‘over there’ instead of ‘here.’ Well. It’s those stupid boundaries we set up. And we keep looking over there at ‘should be.’

Here is a truth. Reality doesn’t suck unless you let it suck. Accept reality and you are well on your way to progress.

–          it is your life <not anyone else’s>

You answer to no one else but yourself. Even if you believe in God … because even then He will ask you to answer for your actions.am i who i am Regardless. Only you know what you think is the best path and what may make you happy. Accept the fact that if you can figure out how to please yourself than the important people in your Life will be pleased.

It is your Life. Don’t let someone else tell you how to live it. Accept responsibility for your own happiness.

Regardless.

Acceptance leads to a stronger more alive person following your own path.

“I suppose in the end it’s almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. What’s harder – what’s much, much harder – is to accept what you actually did do.”

Peter Hook <Joy Division>

In the end I imagine acceptance is really the noble act of letting go.

… sometimes you realize there is no choice but to let go.

 Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

Acceptance may be the most noble action you could ever take. Oh.And what a wonderful quote.

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Written by Bruce