Acceptance takes time, effort, energy, and the support of loved ones.
In the early 18th century, mathematician, astronomer, and general polyglot Isaac Newton offered his famous three laws of motion, the first of which is the most familiar. It states, basically, that a body in motion wishes to remain in motion, and a body at rest wishes to remain at rest, and either body will contentedly do so unless an outside force acts upon it.
It’s called inertia, that tendency of something to move or stand still unless another force acts upon it.
We understand inertia as a basic concept of physics, but if we have ever been in a predicament, we probably understand it as a way of thinking as well. The word is often used in this metaphorical sense. We blame our own inertia when we stay in a job, a relationship, or a setting that no longer serves us well.
I once worked with a woman who was just too busy. Her business was causing her relationships and emotional life to suffer, and it was even causing her physical pain. My advice to her was not something brand new that she had never heard before; her friends had been telling her the same thing for a long time. Anyone could see that she was too busy and she needed to slow down.
It’s this way for many people. We keep going, going, going, and in doing so, we often fail to stop and smell the roses and enjoy the beauty that life has to offer.
She left our session with her typical response: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She wanted a different answer, a different option, but deep down I think she knew that slowing down was the right choice. She just wasn’t willing to accept it yet.
The next week she came to me and had a harrowing story to tell. She had left my office and been driving down the freeway at a high rate of speed because she was in a hurry, as usual. All at once, the semi beside her blew out a tire. It very suddenly swerved into her lane, and she slammed on her brakes just in time. That truck came within mere inches of killing her.
Because the universe sometimes likes to offer messages that are far from subtle, when she looked up at the side of the truck’s trailer, she saw written in big, bold letters the words, “Slow down.” It was the same message that I and other people had been sharing with her, but now she was ready to receive it. She had come to a dead stop, almost literally so, and she didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.
That woman’s life got a lot better after that point. She received the message and found ways to get out of both the literal and figurative fast lanes.
Not everyone is quite so lucky. I know of another woman who sought counseling because she was in a dysfunctional relationship. The man she was dating had beaten her many times. The man was in jail but was getting out soon. My colleague told her that she absolutely needed to stay away from him for her own safety. This was a situation that could end poorly, perhaps with injury or even death.
The woman didn’t like that answer, though she had heard it many times from many sources. This beautiful woman had been told by many people to stay away from her boyfriend, but she didn’t like that answer, and she decided not to follow it.
It turns out that the man she was in a relationship with was released from jail, and this woman picked him up and took him home with her. That same day, he ended up killing her.
When we have struggles, we want answers. Often, however, the answer is very clear. It’s inside of us, and we might even see it—but we choose not to acknowledge it because that’s not an answer we’re ready to accept yet.
The answer to our problems can be obvious to everyone around us and even to ourselves, but we still reject it. We want a different answer.
Sometimes we suffer horribly for our refusal to acknowledge the clear answer to our problems. Occasionally, as with my colleague’s client, our refusal can cost us our lives. Sometimes it can cause unhappiness, but aren’t we here to have a good life? Happiness is our purpose and our birthright. We deserve it.
When we face a problem, we need to take a moment to define it. What exactly are we struggling with? Whether it’s a relationship issue, a career issue, a psychological or spiritual issue, or something else entirely, we need to take stock of it as soon as we recognize that it exists. Time is of the essence if we are to get back to the important work of cultivating happiness in our lives.
After we define it, we must start gathering information about it. What is the potential solution? What can we do to solve our problem and move on from it?
There are many steps we can take to pinpoint a solution. Here are some that I have found success with:
Talking to friends
Talking to professionals
Reading books
Journaling
Making a pro/con list
Looking into my own mind
There’s a funny thing I’ve noticed about finding the right solution to a problem. It never seems foreign or unexpected. The fact is, you usually know the right thing to do, and if you listen to your own still, small voice, the answer will be right there waiting for you. The solution is almost always readily available inside of us.
If we make the decision our heart is advising us to make, we will find that our lives keep getting better and better. We’ll keep finding ways to make our lives more beautiful, more happy, and more peaceful, every single day.
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