Acceptance = We Have No Anger At The Situation

As I share this concept of 100% acceptance with others, the question comes up "what do you mean by acceptance? If I get fired from my job that is a bad thing. Trust me I wont like it". If you look up the definition of acceptance, you will find a number of them, so for the sake of brevity (I can see myself reading this years from now and I will be thankful that I quickly got to the point), I will define it as "lack of anger at the situation".

The definition of anger is usually defined as "anytime something we expect to happen doesn't happen" or just "anytime we are disappointed".

An unexpected lottery win

Well now wait a minute, if that lottery ticket I bought, that I never expected to actually pay off, suddenly hits and I win a million dollars, that will be unexpected but I promise I wont be angry!

However, when we check the numbers and that lottery ticket has proved to be as worthless as the one last week, our true feelings come out and we indeed are a bit angry the heavens have not realized how special we are and granted us this small boon. As foolish as it seems to be, we expected to win and we are angry that we didn't.

However, we get over our anger in less than a minute because we remind ourselves, "what the heck was I thinking? a million to one odds, of course I didn't win!"

It is easy to not be angry

So, the illustration above demonstrates that all anger can be dissipated if we realize that we should not expect anything. period.

Ok I am sure I just lost 90% of you :) I know that very few people will accept the sentence above. But if you're suffering from worry and want to know how you can have acceptance, read on brave one...

Expectations are very expensive - but, you can easily "return them"

I could drop dead from a heart attack before I finish writing this sentence. So I can assure you that I expect to not drop dead... but I could... (see I didn't drop dead, HA!). So yes, we have our expectations. They are expensive. Like an interest only loan, at first they are free, but the price we pay is unhappiness when it's not met... which is frequently... as in "almost always".

However, like an expensive car we can return it as soon as we get tired of paying for it's high maintenance costs, we can "return our expectation" (and refund our "unhappiness" for "happiness") as soon as it's cost rises... to unhappiness.

Freedom from anger

Ok so at any time we can let go of any expectation that wasn't met by saying "I am not a God, so I was out of my mind for expecting ANYTHING to happen ever". This means that ALL anger can be completely washed away. When we don't have that anger we have acceptance. When we have acceptance we are free from worry.

Freedom from worry

So as we sit on the crowded freeway in our car that has just died and angry people behind us are blowing their horns, we can feel the incredible anger; "HOW could this happen to me!". Then we can take a deep breath and look at that worthless lottery ticket in the car's ashtray and remind ourselves that people get stranded on the freeway all the time. Today was our turn. "Stuff-Happens".

Well that's a relief, I do not HAVE to be angry. Seriously, I can let go of my anger by acknowledging that I was expecting my car to never break down on the freeway and all expectations are costly and it is time to return this one.

Now we can concentrate on what we should DO (acceptance allows us to actually DO something constructive). Perhaps we should get out our cell phone and call a tow truck? So we call the tow truck and we sit there and we wait. And we watch the "Stuff-Happen" around us.

some of the people behind us are really angry and we could worry that they may get out of their car and come up and yell at us. But we say, hey, 'Stuff-Happens" and if they do we will let them yell. Actually they are just moving around us. Some are angry at us and some feel sorry for us. "Stuff-is-Happening" around us. Each thing that happens, we simply accept (we don't get angry because it is not what we expected).

And, we have no worry.