ACCEPTING LIFE

“We cannot change anything until we accept it.

Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” 

            These very thought provoking words were recorded by Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and one of the founders of the school of analytical psychology. But his interests extended well beyond this, and he was very influential in such other fields as literature, anthropology, philosophy, religion and human behavior. In the quotation he draws attention to the seemingly unpredictable and unfair actions of life in general, that take place well beyond man’s ability to control them. They can never be managed by any attempt at suppressing or resisting them, but only by accepting the reality of their presence. Any attempt to stop life from unfolding in the way it will unfold, will only result in undue unhappiness and lead to regret and disappointment. It is only by accepting life in its true context, that it is possible to find ways around it that will satisfy a person’s special needs and allow him to flourish.

         To accept life as it is, and to embrace it without remorse or regret is an art that not everyone possesses. To be able to flow with its demands and continue onwards when everything cries out to do otherwise, requires a great deal of courage and strength of character. Accepting life means recognizing that there are only two sides to every situation; one born of one’s expectations and the other coming from outside, and governed by the Laws of nature. The first, derived from one’s own perspective, sees the world as one would like it to be, while the other presents the world as it actually is. The inability to correctly discern the difference and act accordingly is the fundamental reason for so much unhappiness and discontent. This can only be resolved by acceptance of the reality present, and never by any other subjective consideration. When acceptance does not take place, the individual will continue to dwell in the past and is condemned to repeat the same pattern in the future, and to suffer varying degrees of pain and disappointment.

         Accepting life must begin with the accepting of everything and everyone exactly as they are and resist the temptation of applying any personal interpretations. It is so much easier to choose to live our lives in the make-belief world of our imagination where we can do whatever we please and become whoever we wished to become and live out our lives in blissful joyfulness. But such worlds do not exist except in fairy tales, and the real world does not accommodate fairy tales. Life itself is like a river of uncertainty, choosing its own direction and flowing on beyond anyone’s control, doing as it pleases. And to truly accept life, will requires you to jump in and swim, and in so doing trust yourself and your destiny to protect you from mistakes and to lead you to safety. It means also accepting that there some things beyond your control that must be released and forgotten, so that you may be able to seek the other things of importance to defend. Jonathon Lockwood Huie, an American author and inspirational speaker, described this as one of the “great paradoxes of life,” and went on further to explain:

“The accepting with gratitude of whatever life throws at us, is critical to happiness. Yet without a goal and commitment, life loses much of its value. The best we can do, in the face of this paradox, is to play to win, and be cheerful in defeat and be ready to play again.”

         Accepting life means the fundamental recognition that life has no giveaways, nor is anyone entitled to any. Everything in life worth having will have a price tag attached and each person must be willing to pay his share. And even in accepting, no outcome is guaranteed, yet each individual must be prepared to respond according to his full ability. In the times of success, there will be joyful celebrating and there will be growth and understanding and lessons learnt. But in times of failure there may be bitterness and disappointment that may linger on and color the rest of life. But accepting the past and learning from the failure will lead to forgiveness to oneself and to others, and will allow for the return of a better life. It is never the circumstances of life, however difficult these may be, that are the individual’s worst enemy, but how he views himself and his life that will really matter.

            Life must always be accepted on its own terms, and this must include accepting the reality of the unchanging past, embracing the changing present and hoping for a better future. When this is ignored, when an attempt is made to impose one’s will on life, the situation becomes vastly complicated and the chances of disappointment and failure, so much more likely. This has always been one of the major failings of humanity all over the world and evidence of this behavior is  visible everywhere. Whenever an attempt is made to control life’s terms and to impose one’s own will by changing life to accommodate a chosen behavior, a convenient reason is usually created to justify the action as a subconscious maneuver to subvert reality. When we blame others or circumstances for our failings, we are in effect failing to accept responsibility and trying to hide from reality. This action is always a recipe for failure, and one which inevitably leads to continued failures. 

Life itself is firmly based on reality, and even when one chooses not to accept responsibility, the action only serves to delay the lesson to be learnt and correction to be made. Lao Tzu, the great ancient Chinese philosopher, recognized the fundamental truth of this reality of life many centuries ago and took great pain to teach his followers of the consistency of life by noting:

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Do not resist them; that will only create sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

            To accept life on its own terms is to be confident in managing your own living. It implies accepting the reality of what is occurring, without any interference from your ego or your illusions. It implies resisting the impulse to react subjectively in order to satisfy your emotional needs, instead of using an objective approach to assessing actual needs. It means further, setting aside your fears and anxieties of what could happen, and replacing them with a confidence in your being able to cope with what will happen. A successful life is always a balancing act between things that are fixed and cannot be changed and therefore must be accepted, and others that require personal attention to finding ways to get around the unacceptable things and replacing them with better opportunities. Professor Joseph Campbell, the American intellectual, and expert on Human Behavior, very conveniently explained this when he advised:

           “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned,

            so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”

      Acceptance must never be resignation however. When we choose to resign to life’s circumstances, giving up and passively accepting everything, as so many have done in the hope of securing peace and avoiding disappointments, we give up the great opportunity of working with life as it is, and instead we project what it will be. This attitude is indeed the fundamental difference between those who have not been able to accept life’s demands and those who have. Those who resign themselves to being unable to accept the changes are destined to live their lives with the pains and the suffering that follow, while those who accept the reality and work with the demands as they are, will have a chance to accommodate and move on. The former group, faced with the hopelessness of their situation, will be buried by the apathy and disappointment that results, while the latter buoyed by the hope from acceptance, will learn and grow from the experience.

The American Protestant theologian, Professor Reinhold Niebuhr, a highly respected theologian and one of the world’s most influential intellectuals of the 20^th century in the fields of human behavior, religion and morality, very early in his life recognized the importance of acceptance as an integral part of successful living. He never hesitated to remind everyone of this responsibility and included it in his famous Serenity Prayer, one of the most repeated and most accepted statements of all times:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

-This statement, to me, is the epitome of life acceptance, where serenity revolves around first recognizing the difference between those things that can be changed and those than cannot, and then acting accordingly. -Nothing else matters!

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