Happy October! I was not particularly fond of September 2020. Bye-bye September, don’t let the door hitcha on the way out! My theme for today is “acceptance.” (You: Oh great. Not this again. She needs to learn to accept “acceptance” and to move on.) I read a quote that made a lot of sense to me a little while ago, and I wrote it in one of my journals. I’m sorry, but I don’t know who to attribute it to:
“Knowing and understanding are not the same as accepting. Give yourself space to process.”
If ever there was a year that we have been forced to wrap our heads around things, 2020 would be it. Major changes and societal issues and health issues and economic issues, all on top of any of the usual personal life issues which any of us have to deal with in any particular random year, have made dealing with “acceptance”, practically an every day occurrence.
Like the above quote states, we can know things intellectually, without fully accepting these same things. We can understand, for instance, how wearing masks can help save lives. But have we fully accepted that wearing masks may become the norm for the unforeseeable future? Acceptance takes time. Acceptance is always the final stage in any grieving process. Acceptance is not equivalent to approval, but it is the knowing and the ability to sit with, “it is what it is.”
My daughter and I watched Good Will Hunting, the other night. We have seen the film several times, but it is one of those rare movies that is worth watching, again and again. The following scene is one of the most traumatic, poignant scenes in the film, that perfectly illustrates why knowing and understanding are not the same things as acceptance. Friends, the overwhelming events and negative circumstances of 2020 are not our fault. The strangeness and onslaught of changes that have come to our daily lives is not anyone’s fault. Hopefully, we will all be able to come to an acceptance of that fact, and just rise up and do our best, every single day, keeping our faces turned to the sun. Keep the faith!
I think that for most of us, acceptance has elevated to the same level as training for an Olympic sport. It requires fierce dedication and practice, practice, practice! Our medals will be awarded some day far in the future, when we are able to process a situation without resistance because we have learned the hard way to go with the flow. Fighting the inevitable simply because we don’t prefer the outcome is futile. That’s not to say that we should give in to every situation. Standing up for our beliefs and our principles is one of the privileges of being human. But railing against conclusions we can’t change – like death – doesn’t make sense. Accepting that we each have a finite life span and living every day to it’s fullest is far more wise than wasting our time worrying that we are going to die. In this case at least, acceptance makes life far more enjoyable!
So well put!