14 Mar Accepting That Life Isn’t What You Thought I’d Be

Sometimes early in life, we have this idealistic, ultra optimistic outlook on life and the future of what could be. It may have been influenced by content that we watch, our parents or friends, or just our own imagination doing its thing. Either way, it often times is far from the reality of what life is really like, and the responsibilities that it brings. The key here isn’t to fight it, but to fully accept it for what it is—life as it’s lived.

Starry Beginnings

When a lot of people are younger, they view the world as full of possibilities. The chance to hang out with friends endlessly, get into their dream school, get their dream job, and build a lasting career that gives them everything that their nation promises. They may think that the world is their oyster and anything is possible.

I’ve seen this often fostered by parents trying to make their child happy and provide a positive experience, but I’ve also seen this come at the expense of the child being properly prepared for life. I’m going to be brutally honest here and say something applies to all nature; the job of a parent isn’t to constantly provide their child happiness (happiness is important, don’t get me wrong), it is to prepare them to survive in the world. Same as any other animal on the planet; a parent is tasked to emotionally develop, teach, protect, and raise off spring that can thrive in this world. Another brutally honest truth, lying to them does them a disservice that is sometimes irreversible. Just look in places of addiction if you need a reality reminder of this. Some things cannot be undone.

The Back Hand Of Reality

The reality is that life is brutal. Not only is struggle a requirement, but those starry eyed dreams that you have are often decimated and replaced with the crushing weight of responsibility. Friends can’t hang out any more because they don’t have time or are moving away. Can’t get into that college that you wanted because you can’t afford it or your grades were just barely not good enough. Your dream job has 5000 applicants all more qualified than you and your lasting career is now being replaced by AI. Whoever said the life was fair is an idiot who obviously hasn’t lived it.

The reality is that life doesn’t care. Not that life is an a-hole, but it is indifferent. Good bad, win lose, fail succeed. It doesn’t matter to life because life just is. I’ll tell you what your parents probably BS’d on a little bit. Life is going to suck sometimes. It will be painful, you will struggle, you will cry, and you will fail—hard. But that’s not all there is in life. It also can be amazeballs, full of wonder (exactly why I love nature), and fulfilling. It can provide you with emotions that give the color to the dull moments and monotony. It’s all about how you choose to look at it and yes, it is a choice.

Acceptance Is Peace

The key to dealing with the reality of life not being what you thought it’d be is to not try to deal with it. Instead, just accept it. What are you going to do? Try to fight it or subdue it? Life is much bigger than you and it will strong arm you like a toddler. Life will do what it will. The thing is that you can choose to resist and be in pain the whole time (I know a thing or two about pain), or you can accept it, let go of control, and roll with it while smiling at the irony of it all.

Acceptance doesn’t mean do nothing, it means knowing what you can control and what you can’t. Knowing that despite your best efforts or intentions, things may not always work out. You may find that you’re unready for a child, can’t afford a home, forced to take the bus daily, or have to take your place in line at the food bank. All struggles many face, all possible realities of life. Acceptance is understanding this reality and making the decision to keep pushing on. To keep your head up and keep fighting to survive another day. Acceptance is evolution in its most calm form.

Serenity

Considering the topic is Acceptance of life, I’ll leave you with this. One of the most useful tools I’ve found for practicing acceptance, the serenity prayer (use what ever you want in place of creator if necessary).

Creator, grant me the serenity,

To accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

What we are talking about is the wisdom to know how to live life and be content, rather than wrestling with something beyond our control.

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