Do gratitude and acceptance breed failure?

A common couple of wisdom nuggets say:

Be grateful for what you have.

And you can’t change a situation until you learn to accept it.

The idea being maybe you’re shy and anxious, and don’t like it. That’s understandable. So what do you do? Dig deep and change things?

No – not at first.

According to the wisdom, you find something to be grateful for. Maybe, despite your shyness, you have folk you’re close to.

Or maybe you’re young with decent health.

Perhaps you have lots of free time or few financial obligations.

Spend time appreciating those.

That’s the gratitude half of the equation, of course.

Acceptance is all about admitting to yourself that, yes, you have this shyness and anxiety. And maybe you’ll have this for the rest of your life, and that’s okay. It doesn’t make you unworthy as a person.

Be at peace with your foibles, to the point where it’d be fine living that way forever.

(Okay, the common wisdom doesn’t always go this far. But in Buddhist psychology and philosophy, it absolutely does.)

Many folk don’t like hearing this.

For one thing, it sounds tough. Accepting your biggest flaws and struggles? No thanks.

For another, it sounds like a recipe for failure.

Learn to be okay with your foibles and you stop trying to fix them.

Or, at least, it robs you of motivation. The pain you feel can drive you to overcome this.

I’d agree with that, because it’s true. Many folk have had one look at their lives, gone “screw this” and overhauled everything.

But if you haven’t done that yet, maybe pain isn’t working out for you.

Maybe you see this problem as an enemy to fight, so you’re trying to tap into rage, adrenaline and instinct to overpower it.

That sounds exhausting and unreliable.

It’s possible that gratitude and acceptance rob some of the motivation to change, but they also make change much easier. You might find, with a calmer and more accepting attitude, change is as simple as choosing to do it.

You can’t do that without quieting and centring your mind, though. Agitation and distraction feed your problems. A calm trance state soothes them.

That’s one of the many reasons why meditation is so powerful.

It creates a neutral state of mind – one where it’s natural to accept things and dissolve your challenges, even as you breathe.

A noisy mind is difficult to change, just like a turbulent pond is difficult to see through.

If you’ve struggled with meditation in the past – or want to take it further – you need a guide unlike any other.

Like Your Mind Inside, which is module 15 of 19 in Monster Mind Edukaré.

Read that, follow the exercises and loving your biggest pain points becomes easier.

Here’s the link:

https://guided-thought.com/monster