Acceptance is Better than Closure

Nothing is forever and everything comes to an end, one way or another. Dark, am I right? The worst is when a job, a relationship, or a life comes to an unexpected, abrupt end. In the moments and years after that, many people are left looking for something to make sense of it all.

That something is often referred to as closure. It is a sense of satisfied finality mixed with understanding and a desire to move on. The only problem is that eludes everyone pretty much all the time, leaving us worse off than when whatever ordeal we’ve been sorting through started.

What is Closure?

Despite what I wrote above, closure is actually a rather complicated concept. We all experience relationship losses throughout our lives and that doesn’t just mean the romantic kind. Meaningful relationships can come in a variety of forms. Each one of them ending has its own impact on us, both positive and negative.

When a relationship of any kind comes to an end, we go looking for meaning. That refers to meaning in the relationship as well as in its end. More than anything, we’re searching for a reason why things came to an end. This is called closure.

We have been programmed to look for it by every aspect of our culture. Yes, there are a lot of pop psychologists making big money off the concept. And, as always, closure has become a key part of the marketing cycle we’re all trapped in. But there’s more to it than that.

Our basic storytelling process requires that movies, TV series, books, and such all come to a satisfying conclusion. People become so wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters that they require the stories those characters are involved in to have closure. So begins the feedback loop.

The Problem with Closure

As a culture, we have been instructed that closure is expected, required, and inevitable. This is reinforced daily by every scrap of media we consume. The reality is much different. In most situations that require closure, it never arrives.

Simply put, reality is not obligated to provide you with a neat and tidy finale to every part of your life. If you do all the right things and follow the right path, you will not necessarily find closure. It’s not, in fact, inevitable, like eventually ending up in Edmonton whether you plan to go or not.

I have been fired from a few jobs over the years. I honestly still don’t know why. I have had friends walk away from me. Don’t know why. My marriage fell apart. I would love for someone to be able to tell me why that happened because I remain in the dark about that whole ball of ridiculousness.

To date, I have received no closure in any of these situations. And I can tell you from talking to other people who have dealt with similar issues that they rarely get closure, either. That sense of understanding and finality is often elusive, to the point of driving people nuts.

This is where the search for closure becomes incredibly dangerous to your mental health. You can literally drive yourself batty looking for something that you will never find. My ex-wife will never be able to explain to my satisfaction why she made the choices she did. As such, closure is impossible in that situation. The same is true of lost jobs and lost friends.

Finding Something Better than Closure

Closure has no agency for the person who needs it the most. In my case, finding closure in any of the above situations requires the assistance of the other half of the equation. As a general rule, those people do not care about my mental health and have no interest in helping me.

Instead, I have searched for acceptance. I have worked to accept that my marriage is over, that some friendships aren’t forever, and that a lot of jobs are for the short term. I’ve learned to accept not just the fact these situations came to an end but also that I will likely never know why.

The why of it all is a huge component of closure. It’s hard to find finality and understanding without why being dealt with. On the other hand, acceptance doesn’t need to know why. All it requires is you to accept something happened and move on because that’s all you can do.

In real life, most stories don’t have satisfying conclusions that a writer wrapped up with a neat, tidy bow. You don’t usually get closure. Instead, strive for acceptance and move forward from there. Trust me when I say that you will be much better for it.