What would you do differently if you could? What’s holding you back? Change is a fact of life. Indeed, growth implies change. Is there also a role for acceptance, coming to peace with who you are and your life circumstances? Perhaps enlightenment begins with acceptance, without judgement of “what is”.
Interestingly, stress is all about change and adjustment. The greater the adjustment you have to make to any life situation, the greater the stress reaction – unless you’ve learned to “roll with the punches” and to keep perspective.
Do you remember Dr., Richard Carlson’s book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and It’s All Small Stuff? Or my version of the serenity prayer: God grant me the wisdom and courage to change the things I can, but that I not get too goofy when things don’t go the way I think they should?
Another good and helpful question is: When will the day come you’ll know everything? The fact is you can never know everything about any subject. So, you’re bound to make mistakes or have difficulty dealing with change.
We’ve all been highly conditioned in childhood about what’s right and wrong, about our self-perception and self-esteem, and any number of things that can make us less flexible and limit our ability to deal with change and life’s difficulties. We have to be right – and become remarkably self-critical in the process. This does not bring peace of mind. In fact, it usually leads to trying to please others and a significant loss of self-acceptance.
You simply can’t please everyone. We all have lots of different life experiences and learn different “truths”. I believe peace of mind comes when we realize we’ll never have it all figured out, never be in complete control – and that it doesn’t matter.
Nobody’s got it all figured out. That’s the folly or arrogance of criticism. The fact is that you can’t even know for certain what’s right for you, let alone for someone else.
Instead, we learn to conform and feel good about ourselves largely when we’re pleasing others and trying to fit in. The research and common sense are that we feel best and are most healthy when we’re able to be ourselves, when we’re being unique. However, we’ve become a clone of our parents, community, and culture. This is how we come to feel loved and accepted. At a deep psychic level, we equate conforming with being loved – and in the process of constantly trying to fit in, we become quite inflexible.
As we mature and learn and grow, we realize our beliefs and values change, but deep within we believe that to change (or not conform) means we’ll be unloved, won’t fit in, and we’ll be rejected. Most of this is taking place in our subconscious mind, but the dissonance and stress are real.
Something’s got to give. We’ve either got to change, which will create its own stress, or we can remain inflexible, which will disenable us to deal with the inevitable stresses of life. Either way we lose and feel stuck.
Here’s where I want to ask you some more questions: How do you want to spend the time you have left? Trying to please others? Or if you were to look back on your life, if you had to do it all over again, what would you change and do differently?
Most people would play more and work less. They would have taken risks and followed their dreams vs. all the things they thought they “should” have done. What are you dreams and aspirations? What’s your bucket list? It’s not too late.
In the book, Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware shares her experience as a palliative caregiving nurse. She spent the last three to twelve weeks of her patients’ lives listening to their stories as they faced their mortality. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, here are the most common five:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish I had let myself be happier.
Here was nurse Ware’s conclusion. “Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
