The Art of Acceptance

Our Quest for happiness is perhaps instinctual, deriving from our earliest experiences for pleasure and gratification. Anyone who’s familiar with babies will be familiar with the sense of upset or anger when a pleasurable state is interrupted, yet even as adults we rarely come to terms with the fact that good and bad are opposite sides of the same coin. Understanding that things that make pleasure possible can also be a source of misery is just one element to the art of acceptance.

Misery is also not just an absence of pleasure but is also caused by unmet expectations and aspirations, and by a continuous need for approval in our personal and professional lives. These disappointments, some big and some small cause some people a lot of stress and anxiety and may result in depression or other mental illnesses. But despite the imperfection in one’s professional or personal situation, psychologists and therapists believe a lot of this struggle and stress is avoidable with a simple technique, acceptance, or to let things be.

What is Acceptance

A standard acceptance definition in psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change or protest it.