Learning to Accept

I have a habit of allowing one bad event, feeling, or act to take over an entire day or ruin an otherwise perfectly good mood. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and although it seems like common sense to not let one incident take precedence over all others in a day, it's always been easy for me to dwell on the negative and think, "I did this wrong," or "I should have done that differently," or "@%$#, I screwed that up!" I'm (very slowly) learning that that kind of thinking doesn't usually help resolve a bad situation. Rather, I need to ask myself, "How could I have done that differently" or "What could I have said that would have had less of a negative impact?"

Likewise, I can't always expect the outcome of a situation be what I want or think it should be. I have to accept that others see things differently than I do, therefore forming different opinions. I may not agree with that opinion, but the least I can do is respect the other person and their feelings. I'm not the kind of person who thinks I'm always right (I'm usually too busy second-guessing myself to think that), but there are occasions when I feel the need to push my point again and again, no matter what the other person says or what their perception of the situation may be. This is not going to make me any friends, or score me any bonus points.

Acceptance is a very difficult thing, I think. At least for me. I am very appreciative of lots of things, and I try to be a very happy person, but accepting the things that I don't like is ... well, let's just say it's never been my specialty. I'm also a creature of habit. That doesn't really lend itself to easily accepting things that are unexpected or "out of the norm." More often than not, I find myself reacting badly to a situation or circumstances I don't like, then having to go back and apologize for my behavior. Apologies are all fine and good, and I certainly do encourage them, however - like I tell my kids - if you apologize for something you should try to not do it again. You screw up, you apologize, take mental notes, learn and when that situation presents itself again, you can say, "I've been here and the previous ending wasn't so good. So now I know what NOT to do." And then you do something different than what you did before.

I like to think of myself as a fairly quick, hands-on kind of learner. However, it's taken me a long time to learn to accept things as they are, and in fact I'm still learning. I've become better at recognizing the things I need to accept. Now I just have to be better at accepting them the first time around, instead of reacting badly then apologizing for it. I hope this journey will help me with that quest. I believe it already has.