Life is unpredictable and often – in fact, mostly – a struggle. Characterizing life as difficult is not succumbing to a “negative outlook,” as some life coaches will insist. No, admitting and fully accepting that life involves suffering is the key to controlling your own emotional and behavioral reactions to life’s twists and turns.
Although everyone experiences failure and hardship, our western “bootstrap” culture promotes the idea that everyone is solely responsibility for his or her missteps and that failure happens due to character flaws. That viewpoint is not only incorrect, but it unnecessarily compounds our suffering when something goes wrong.
Shit happens. Notwithstanding the cultural assumption that we can each control our respective shit, most shit is well beyond our control. We can’t control our genetic characteristics (height or freckles) or capabilities (math or singing). We can’t control what people think of us or say about us behind our backs. We can’t control our childhood circumstances or experiences, which shape our ability to navigate adulthood. We can’t control the choices made by our loved ones, even when we’re confident they will end in suffering. And we generally can’t control our emotional reactions to each situation in which we find ourselves – at least, not initially.
We can’t control any of that, yet we suffer greatly over all of it, primarily because we expect, and are expected, to control it all. Accepting our lack of control – really accepting it – is our secret weapon in finding some peace amidst the chaos.
How often have you thought, “this can’t be right,” or “I can’t believe this,” or “no way”? How often have you clenched your fists in objection to a circumstance or an outcome? We do it all the time. You make an emergency run to Target for some diapers, and the store is out of diapers. You receive a letter denying your application for a credit card. You learn that your mother has cancer.
We don’t want to accept painful experiences because, well, they’re painful. Ironically, not accepting them intensifies and prolongs our pain. Sadness suppressed or denied becomes depression. Anger suppressed or denied becomes anxiety and self-hate. Accept events as they unfold and feel your emotions as they arise.
Tardiness provides a benign but illustrative example of this kind of radical acceptance. Imagine you’re late for a job interview. You’re scheduled to meet the interviewer at noon at a restaurant and, wouldn’t you know, your car won’t start. Shit! By the time your brother-in-law gives you a jump, there’s no way you’re going to make the appointment on time. You call the client, but your call goes straight to voicemail.
“Yes. Um. Hi. This is Geoffrey. Yes, um, I’m so sorry. Believe it or not, I had car trouble. I know, lame, right? It’s 11:45. I should be there in 30 minutes. Again, so sorry.”
While you’re leaving that message, you begin cutting in and out of traffic, honking at all the unyielding cars and flipping off the red lights. You finally arrive at your appointment, stressed and angry. As you shake your potential employer’s hand, you spill water on his lap.
You don’t get the job.
What if, instead of resisting each unexcepted, unwelcome event in that scenario, you had developed an ability to accept and adapt to change more quickly and effectively? What if, when your car doesn’t start, you bypass the cursing and the panic-induced loss of creative thinking, and instead pause, breathe, and then simply work to solve the problem at hand? You still might be late for your appointment, but that too is a circumstance to be accepted and then calmly addressed.
Accepting each event in that scenario as it occurs would allow you to leave a more cogent, confident voice mail, make the trip with less chance of an accident, and arrive at the interview calm and collected, much less likely to spill water on your interviewer. More importantly, that kind of acceptance permits you to navigate the whole scenario calmly, which raises your general level of contentment and joy during the entire process.
Things change. Be patient and navigate your changing world with acceptance and calm. Live as if you are the perfect you, and as if each event happens just as it should. Find joy in the unexpected.