Sometimes you’re an observer of other people’s lives and you may think you’ll never experience what they’re living through, whether it is a positive or negative situation. You may think, “That will never happen to me.”
Part of the real beauty of life is that it’s unpredictable. Nothing is permanent, everything changes, and of course, a lot of things can happen that will transform who you are and have an impact on your life. We need to cultivate the ability to truly accept whatever comes and embrace it. We need to develop the habit of looking at whatever happens through a positive mindset, instead of a negative and defeatist one.
Of course, life will bring many challenges and it’s not easy to embrace them when we’re suffering and wishing those things would have never happened. But, if we start cultivating acceptance in our lives right now, we’ll likely to cope with future crisis in a different way and view them from a different perspective. We will accept instead or resisting.
The reality is we might want things to be different in the future, but in the present moment we need to accept things as they are. That’s way you can make your life flow smoothly instead of roughly. As you go along, you will discover that you will be happier and more peaceful when you accept what had happened, instead of constantly fighting to change things.
There are two ways out of a problem, accept what’s happening, see the positive, and choose a peaceful state of mind or fight against it. Be miserable and struggle against the universe. Learning to accept things as they present themselves is a helpful tool in different aspects of life.
Whether it’s any loss, a missed opportunity, or a sudden change in your plans, being able to accept things as they come (when they are out of our control) will help you maintain inner peace and happiness.
Acceptance is the key to convert momentary happiness to enduring happiness. It helps you move from feeling happy to actually being happy.
Practicing acceptance prepares you to live in this changing world, where you never know what’s going to happen next. Acceptance is like protecting yourself with your own shield. It’s helpful to learn how to identify when it’s time to persist and when it’s time to accept. One thing that makes acceptance much easier is to list all the possible explanations for why you’re experiencing something. Finding the purpose behind every challenge will help you embrace it instead of fighting it.
Choose not to judge what happens to you. Instead, believe that everything happens for a reason and that better things will always follow. That’s the beginning of true acceptance. The important thing is not to understand why something happened. Our understanding can wait, but our obedience cannot. When something unpredictable happens, instead of complaining and over-thinking it, we need to choose to live with it.
It’s hard to practice acceptance when you deeply wish things aren’t the way they are. But the truth is, sometimes we can’t change our reality, even though we try. Instead of staring at the closed door in front of us or getting tired and bruised while we try to break it down, let’s turn around and see how many other windows we could open.
Acceptance is a choice–a hard one most definitely but in the end, it’s a choice that only we can make at any given situation of our life.
Semiahmoo House Society, a non-profit organization located in Surrey/White Rock, exists to provide quality services and supports to people with disabilities and their families in the community. The Semiahmoo Foundation exists to fund, support and enhance the programs and services delivered by Semiahmoo House Society.
By Shabnam Khan, Personal Development Worker – s.khan@shsbc.ca