How to Distinguish Acceptance from Complacency in Your Daily Choices

What does acceptance mean to you?

Oftentimes, inaction and other forms of helplessness feel like natural responses to accepting things for how they are.

Whether it’s a reality check from examples in our own lives, or the events taking place nationally and internationally… acceptance can feel like we are succumbing to the bystander’s effect.

We find ourselves frozen in space, unsure of what we are expected to do, while watching life from the nosebleed section, not sure how to inject ourselves into the game.

“It isn’t complacency,” we tell ourselves, “It simply is what it is…,” and with that thought we turn the page, close the chapter, and resolve ourselves to endure, or tell ourselves to ignore… because how else should we be expected to respond to acceptance?

We quiet our inner protests and choke down reality as thought it were a bitter pill.

Never really considering that coming to terms with uncomfortable truths, as they present themselves, can be a catalyst in positioning ourselves for change.

Accepting things as they are always leaves room for change

It’s easy to assume that to accept the situation as it is presented means to comply to the conditions to enable its continuance. This is false. Acceptance is an evaluation of the current state of affairs. Recognizing things for what they are as a precursor to the considerations on how they might be, or how they ought to be. From the anchor of acceptance, we can choose change. We can accept what has been presented as fact, all the while resisting the pressure to enable that reality to persist.

We all seem to understand that most things are subject to change.

Though we’ve all been conditioned to maintain a degree of rigidity in the structures, narratives, and norms that reinforce the status quo.

Even if it is broken and even if it no longer fits.

We can accept… to play the role that we are given, and resist the tides of change.

But we have an alternative choice.

We also have the ability to accept the people, places, and situations for what they are, all the while positioning ourselves to build the bridge that enables tomorrow’s possibilities.

If we take the time to consider our own thoughts, beliefs, and desires in contrast of the present reality, those that run contrary to the ideals that we are told to accept…we can choose the role that we play in response to the situations we find ourselves in. 

We can lean in to intentionality.

Holding space for all that currently is while continuing to leave room for what could be.

Focus on evolution, anchoring in the choices that reinforce possibilities.

There are many people who are trying to navigate the present reality while rooted in the past.

Clinging to ideals and values that have already been swept away in the change that tomorrow brings. Trying to re-establish antiquated norms, that felt good to accept at a time where they were acceptable.

I would much rather be among those who are open to the pursuit of change. Where we accept that while things are what they are, that I have a say in how things could be, should be, and ought to be. Taking the lessons from the past to inform the stories we’ll share in the future.

We can accept things are what they are, while choosing the role that we play in what they could be.

Whether this is in our personal lives or on the national or international stage, never believe the lie that acceptance means complacency.

Be the disruptor that continuously challenges the status quo.

We create room for change in our small every day choices

#disruption #acceptance #change