On Acceptance

It occurs to me that as long as I refuse to accept life on it's own terms, I will suffer. As important as it is to accept life as it is, it is also important to take responsibility. When we take ownership for what we create in our lives, then we have freedom to create something different. When we are victims, everything happens to us and we have no options to create the life we want. We do, however, get the fabulous license to complain loudly and hint to others that they might alleviate our suffering for us if only they really cared and really knew us.


At the same time, sometimes I feel like there is just no explanation for what happens. Sometimes there seems to be no imaginable reason why. Then I think, well Victor Frankl found meaning in his experiences in a concentration camp, even though at times his only reason was to bear his sufferings honorably. And at times that just feels like blasphemy to hear. This is meaningless! There is no reason for this unspeakable horror! There is nothing we at times hold onto more tightly than our own misery.

Acceptance can be an instant process or a long one, depending on the person and the situation. If I go to the coffee shop and they inform me that they are out of my favorite roast, I can probably immediately accept that. Okay, I'll take the light roast, no big deal. I recently found out that the lighter roasts actually have more caffeine, anyway. That seems completely counter-intuitive. Stronger coffee should equal stronger caffeine, yes? No.

I went to a fabulous outdoor concert recently. I was near the front of the crowd and a couple began to set out chairs for themselves next to me. A man working security immediately approached them, “Excuse me, if you are going to use chairs we need you to go to the back row so that you're not blocking the view.”

They looked at him incredulously, “Are you f-ing kidding me?” They literally said that.

“No, we need you to move to the back.”

After the man left, they commenced muttering obscenities amongst themselves. It took them a good ten minutes to accept that they needed to either move, or not use their chairs.

On the other hand, when my mom told me that she was afraid that her brain tumor may be back, I absolutely refused to accept it. I did not even cry because I would not believe it. Rather, I came up with a myriad of possible solutions. I sat on the living room floor grinding my teeth. I told her that I would move home but keep working full time and I would give her half of my income to help with medical bills and teach her yoga and pranayama and clean the house. I would take care of everything. I convinced her to have a cat scan done.

There were no abnormalities in her brain and no growth of the dead tumor from over ten years ago.

Ah but in that moment I just wanted a feeling of control. The reality is that I cannot influence whether she develops a tumor. My vain grasping for strands of control kept me stuck in non-acceptance. As long as I refused to accept the possibility that her health may be in danger, I had to live by just going through the motions of life. I went to work. I pretended to be involved and engaged in helping the troubled kids there, when in reality I felt incapable of caring at that moment. I couldn't. I was stuck in pretend life until I heard the news that my mom was healthy and had no tumor growth.
 
It is in situations of any type of grief or loss that acceptance becomes more difficult and can become a process. Acceptance does not mean that you are happy about whatever has happened, it just means that you know that it is what it is instead of using a myriad of methods to convince yourself that it's not what it is.
 
I love this quote by Pema Chodron:
 
"As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity."

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