THE WAY IT IS

ACCEPT IT OR NOT

If you don’t like it, change it. If you can’t change it, accept that fact, and move on. Acceptance does not mean approval. It recognizes what is. If we attempt to live a false circumstance which we would prefer, we will fail, and in failure we make it worse.

When I came downstairs today I was feeling pretty good. I made the mistake of looking at the news, and it went down hill from there. Yet, I have difficulty not reading what’s going on. That would be simply denial. Won’t work. So, I suppose looking at the news really was not a mistake.

Seeing what is going on, when I say “move on”, I mean let it go. We must know our truth, but, if we can do nothing to change it, we must not carry it around with us. We move on with our lives.

Of course, you know what I’m talking about — war, pandemic, politics, etc., the circumstances of our times.

We think we have it bad. Not so. The majority of our ancestors had a much harder life than most of us. Pandemic? Remember the Black Plague. War? Remember our uncivil war, 50,000 Americans dead in one battle, killed by other Americans, many thousands more crippled. WWI and II, horrors beyond description. I personally remember WWII. Compared to that, we have no problems deserving a whine.

Allowing discomfort because of the Ukrainian war is recognition of empathy. That is a good thing, up to a point. When empathy for the suffering of others about which we can do nothing takes charge of our lives, that is too much…