How Different Would It Be If You Knew Acceptance?

“Give it a little time, everything will be okay.”, isn’t that what Naina, from the film ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’, said to Bunny? Yeah, time is magical. But there is a little something that has gone astray from our minds when it comes to giving time to problems in order to deal with them. Have you ever tried to make the head or tail of as to why time eases our problems? It owes to the concept of acceptance.

Acceptance and Forgiveness.

We have day in and out been given to understand how when people are happy and when their heart is happy, they are kind, humane and they do nice things. So, when someone did/do you bad when they are not being kind, when they are unable to take responsibility and own their actions, wish for their happiness, and let it go, forgive them. Because you know, when someone knows they did you wrong but can’t find the courage to own it, they’ll do anything to justify it. Just accept it, be the bigger person and forgive them. It is easy to accept when you have learnt to forgive, and it becomes a lot untroubling when you nonchalantly stop feeling malice towards what happened.

Many a times, the act of acceptance goes hand-in-hand with the act of forgiveness. People often misjudge the need for forgiveness. No, it is not always because something whoever did to you is justified or correct. Sometimes, it is for your own peace and betterment. Because, forgiveness is not telling someone “Whatever you did was right and I forgive it”, instead it is “Whatever you did, was wrong, and it hurt me, but it is okay because I don’t deserve to let it affect my mental state anymore.” Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, you set yourself free from the shackles you bound yourself to.

So, what is acceptance? What does it mean? What does it speak to us?

Let me put it into perspective for you — suppose that you have an ice-cream cone in your hands, that you brought with all the available change you had in your pocket. Unfortunately, someone knocked it over. It lays on the ground now. What are you going to do? Frown, pick it up, throw it, and walk away. Was there any other alternative? No.

Acceptance is just that. You go through something, you slowly start accepting the fact that it happened and how it affected you, and you let it go. Because the only way out is the way through. In simple words, there are two ways out of a problem; you can do something about it, which is great, you don’t need to worry, and, you cannot do something about it, but again you don’t have to worry about it. I understand, it is not as easy as when you say it. But worrying isn’t easy either.

Acceptance is hard. Not accepting and dwelling is hard. Which hard are you of a mind to choose?

Why is it important?

As our problems and worries range from mere to huge, personal to social, acceptance fits them all, only differently. We are complex beings, and so are our problems. However, worrying and dreading gets no one anywhere near to the solution, especially when our hands are tied.

But acceptance. It brings you peace. It comes at you and tells you, “Hey so this happened and there isn’t much you can do here. But that’s okay! Doesn’t stop you from being happy. If you can do something about it, then do, but if you can’t, that’s alright too.”

Because acceptance embraces your difficulties. Often when you are unable to find serenity, it is because you have few things or people or situations that remained unaccepted. You cannot give so much attention to the negative matter and expect to be happy. Most of our problems will be cut short if we replace our expectations with acceptance. It brings you less trouble, it reduces your stress. When we panic or worry about something, its time and time again is because of our limited control over the situation. But sometimes, things are just out of our control. And the sooner we accept that, the better. Going through something? No worries, embrace your sadness, accept the situation, and grow. Things happen, it hurts, you heal.

How do I accept things? It is so hard.

Without a doubt, it is hard, acceptance doesn’t always come easy. It takes time, efforts and understanding. Certainly, there are some ways to learn how to accept situations.

1. Identifying the root cause: whatever the circumstances, recognize what caused them, and get familiar with it. Did someone betray you? Why did they do it? Acknowledge the reason, and just accept it the way it is, however disheartening. Sometimes, the worst happens only to show us otherwise. And it is facile to accept a situation if you look for the silver lining instead of a break in the clouds.

2. Know the extent of your control: as mentioned earlier, not every situation is in our hands. Most of the time we worry because we cannot control certain things. But if you can’t control something, you can accept it and breathe a sigh of relief at the least. Accept the moment as if you had chosen it, even if you didn’t.

3. Letting go of the past: harbour no grudges. The situation that you are taking so long to accept has already passed away, there’s simply no use of dreading over the past. Some people did you wrong? That’s sad, I wish they were better for you. But can you change them? Can you change what they did? Can you change what they’re still doing? If the answer is no, accept it, forgive them, wish them well, and just let go. You tried to make it better, didn’t you? So just do yourself a little favour, and let go of that rope that only injured your hand all this while. It might not change yesterday but it unquestionably enriches your tomorrow.

4. Focusing on the right build-up: less build up inside, more build-up outside. You accept what is around you, you accept what happens to you when you expect less. In lieu of expecting and anticipating things to go your way, put things into the right perspective when they come at you. Take it how it comes, let it go how it goes.

Happiness acts in accordance with acceptance. A mind that savvies acceptance, knows compassionate understanding. It knows that what people do, reflects who they are. It knows what that when a solution to an issue is nowhere to be found or deduced, it is just a case of accepting the truth. Learn to forgive, learn to grow. Learn to recognize, accept and overcome. Accepting something does not indicate that you don’t embrace your feelings, welcome them in. All things being equal, you offer yourself a token of tranquillity by receiving the token of acceptance. Acceptance may come off as a hard pill to gulp down, but sometimes it is the only pill that puts an aid to your headache.

~Submitted and written for Aurora TLS by Khushi Patel