Acceptance is Everything

Everything with me is such a ‘work in progress’. I never feel like I’m achieving what I set out to do. I guess I should be contented in the fact that, like with everything, it is not about the destination, but the journey along the way.

I know I’m being vague, but it is by design. I am seriously ‘working’ and a million things. One of the most important ones is my attempt at seeing all views, not just my own. I don’t want to have tunnel vision anymore. I don’t think that I am right about everything, even though I’m often the loudest, squeakiest wheel. Just because I am vocal about my opinions does not and should not mean that I have everything figured out. Because I don’t. But, I think sometimes I lose sight of the fact that there is, indeed, “more than one way to skin a cat”.

Going way back to when I moved to Venezuela, I remember getting married and moving to my husband’s hometown, and initially having a superior view of myself as an American in comparison to my new peers. Of course, this was due in part to the fact that I was in my mid-20s and still had not gleaned any wisdom about my true place in the world, and I still wouldn’t for about another five years (the beauty of the 30s, at least I believe, is that you begin to realize that you don’t know a damned thing about anything and you become a much better student of Life)…my haughty attitude during my twenties and living abroad kept surfacing when I would find faults with the inefficiencies in commerce and disorganization in scheduling (or lack thereof) and even in silly things like having fewer choices in the grocery stores, or unpolished produce and fruit in the markets!

For a long time then, I felt completely alone. Isolated and stewing with disgruntlement because I was comparing myself to someone completely different. The average Venezuelan was nothing like me. No, indeed, they were my polar opposite… they were happy go lucky, charismatic, warm and loving people more concerned with relationships and laughs than with progress and schedules.

Perhaps we were on two polar extremes and both were bad, its true. The latin customs are more lax than the rigidity of American life. But they are also more familial, they enjoy their lives more, they have a zest for life. They work less, and party more! Maybe sometimes too much-

But, maybe we worry too much about timeliness, efficiency, and things that we just can’t control. Maybe we should loosen our collars just a tad, and actually enjoy our days more? Laugh more, take more time off from work and spend more with our whole families and friends.

Perhaps there is somewhere in the middle where both cultures would do vastly better. Makes me think of a quote that a friend recently posted on my blog:

“Out beyond the idea of right doing and wrong doing, there is a field, I’ll meet you there.” Rumi

After my first year in Venezuela, I started seeing the error of my ways. Well, of my thoughts, at least. I didn’t have it all figured out. Being American, and living my American way was neither superior, nor easier. In fact, I seemed to be the only person miserable! I realized then that I had been seeing everything in my new life through a narrow tunnel. I wasn’t open and accepting of other people and other ways of doing things. Of course, there are always several ways to arrive at the same conclusion or outcome. If you arrive at your destination, does it really matter how you got there?

Well, yes, it does. It matters to you, because you are going to carry your experiences along with you. You, and no one else. I don’t even know if I’m explaining this at all, in some ways, I feel like I am talking in a circle, but what I am trying to say is this:

I realized long ago that it is very easy for me, and probably others, to develop a very slanted view of all things without opening our minds and realizing that we are all different, and that there will be more than one ‘right way’ to do things. When you are trapped in your own vision of the world, the only person being slighted  is you! The world keeps turning, people keep right on doing whatever they are going to do, and we’re all in the pursuit of happiness.

So, back in my late twenties, I gave myself this advice: Let it go. Open your mind, open your heart. Admit you know nothing. Keep your mouth shut, and you might learn something. Consider everything. All is possible…

And I find myself needing to be reminded of those things again. I have been very narrow in my views lately, very opinionated. And I shouldn’t be…because ultimately, it is hurting me. Hindering me. Holding me back from all that I could be…

And want to be…

So I am working on being more accepting. More amicable. More easygoing. Less rigid. Less opinionated.

I am laughing more and crying less.

I am trying to be a ‘Yes Man’… (this is a reference to Jim Carrey’s movie “Yes Man”, which was really good and got me thinking)

When I disagree, I am biting my tongue and smiling instead. Sometimes silence can be golden. I need to remember that.

I am trying to let go of the mantra, “My Way or the Highway”.

I guess the bottom line is that I am trying to be more forgiving, more understanding, more accepting.

And I have a feeling that by trying to be more forgiving, understanding and accepting of others, I will become more forgiving, understanding, and accepting of myself as well…

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. Acceptance is the key to everything.”
Michael J. Fox