5. The Principle of Acceptance

July 30, 2004 at 12:21 am | In Uncategorized |

At tonight’s weekly meeting, we returned to the Principles of Valid Action:

If day and night, summer and winter are fine with you, you have surpassed the contradictions.

I shared two experiences dealing with airplanes, seperated by over 5 years. In the first, coming back from Chile to Chicago in 1999 I was an emotional wreck over a possible bump off an overbooked flight. In the second, returning to Ghana from Liberia in April of this year, I was in a much more calm space as my flight was delayed, then cancelled. I returned to the city and tried to plan on what happens if I thus missed my flight to Chicago the next evening. Sure, there was some anxiety, but generally, it was pretty calm for me. I can’t change it.

Gerry wondered how much “acceptance” is limiting problem solving in new and creative ways.

Would you care to share your experiences on this principle?

5 Comments

  1. For me, the important thing is to be clear about what the current situation is (which cannot be changed), and keeping that separate from my ideas/hopes/plans for the future (which can be changed). The problem that Gerry refers to is that often people “accept” future situations that they could change with some creative effort.

    For example, when your flight to Ghana was cancelled, the current situation was simply one cancelled flight–it did not necessarily mean that your future plans (getting to Chicago by a specific date) were ruined. Maybe you could get to Ghana some other way to make your flight, or exchange your tickets for a different route. If all your attempts failed, then you could accept that your original plans need to be modified.

    –Cliff

    Comment by Clifford Adams — July 31, 2004 #

  2. Hi Cliff. Yes, that’s part of it. Actually what I was thinking about was the archetypical story of the crazy scientist/inventor who continues when everyone “knows” what he is attempting is impossible. Can we even tell which is the crackpot and which is the bleeding edge genius? To me acceptance is about the things that are part of the environment, like gravity, night and day. We can compensate, but the condition remains. It is also about seeing truely. You’re not going to achieve the impossible by wishful thinking, it take a good theory and careful experiment and observation. Put another way, if your going to apply the principle of acceptance, you’d better be sure you aren’t accepting a distorted or unwarrented view of the situation. Reframe the problem to discover the opportunity.

    Comment by Gerry — August 1, 2004 #

  3. Hmm.. Your mention of wishful thinking reminds me of a definition I heard of it once… something about wishing being the wings the truth becomes the truth on… or, that sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it… But that is my eternal quest for the truth - maybe doesn’t apply…

    Comment by susan kerr — August 4, 2004 #

  4. Thanks, Susan. I might rephrase to say something like, wishing can help the truth emerge. In my lexicon, the truth is something immutable and ultimately beyond our reach in any absolute sense. True things that aren’t known because they haven’t been or can’t be discovered are the space where truth emerges and possibilities shift.

    I agree that wishing, or dreaming if you prefer, is part of this process, but I did want to contrast with wishful thinking where we have made something true in our thoughts when even in our heart of hearts we know that it is not. Where we refuse to listen to the evidence before us.

    Comment by Gerry — August 4, 2004 #

  5. This heart of hearts is where we need to listen. If we do that, then all our wishes will comes true. When I wish to win the lottery, is it possible that my heart of hearts agrees? Not for me, buy maybe for someone else?

    Comment by Ted Ernst — August 5, 2004 #

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^