Desire and Acceptance

Today, in a world like ours, we all have desires. We all crave for something. Material or immaterial, it doesn’t matter. We all want something(s) in life. However, as miserable as things are, most of us never get them. And those of us who do, realize that their expectations were much higher than their desires.

It’s a tough place, this beautiful world of ours. It introduces you to such bitter truths of life that it takes away the joy of living. Makes us change our colorful perspective with a cynical one. Unfortunately, we fail to understand the vital aspect of the whole situation. We turn blind to the fact that we are the cause behind the distress we suffer from.

We humans have a habit of trying to make everything better. We try to mold and change whatever we can in order to please our viewpoint of what is correct. We struggle tirelessly, putting in all our effort just to appease the initial expectation we have about anything in life. Our delusional psyche causes us to believe that our actions can change the course of nature. Now, you may think this is a huge statement to make. Nevertheless, think about it a little more. As a believer of destiny, I believe that no matter what we do, we can’t change what’s destined for each one of us. In fact, the actions we take in the attempt to avoid our destiny (in case it is not too pleasing) is part of the process that leads us to our final destination.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about life, then it is to be content and accepting. To be content with what one has and to be accepting of what life gives you is something we all are weak at. Like every other thing out there we try to achieve this as well. I lost both my paternal grandparents, as well as my maternal grandmother, in the last two years. During this period of time, I observed my parents grieving and accepting this brutal truth of life. I observed my uncle befriending silence as a coping mechanism for the trauma that the incident has left him with. We try to make ourselves content and accepting, however, there’s a minute issue. You see, this is a desire as well. We desire to be content. We desire to be accepting. Even though they accepted the truth of life, they couldn’t hold themselves back from breaking down time and again. They have accepted the fact that they can’t change reality and that is what hurts the most.

I remember reading a book called Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It is a love story between the main characters Michael and Sarah (Angel). There comes a part in the book where Sarah cheats on Michael after their marriage. Michael catches her in the act and takes her back to his house without saying anything. He can’t change what has happened and he doesn’t wish to change his wife because he loves her. Thus, he accepts what’s thrown at him. Still, when alone, he cries. He cries his heart out. And he can’t remove the sight from his mind for days. He cries because he has to accept this reality. Even if he had left her, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that he was cheated on.

Life is so treacherous that even when we’re trying to be positive about the way it is, it throws us another curveball and there’s nothing we can do about it. Moments when we try to be accepting and content with life, we realize how weak we are when it comes to the greater aspect of things. We’re so powerless that we just have to accept everything. Life tests our patience, our tenacity, and our resilience. But what happens when we run out of these attributes? We cry, scream, and howl, pointlessly and powerlessly. When we cry, it's our way of lamenting at the fact that life, in a way, is forcing us to accept whatever it gives us.

Thus, the way there’s no real existence of absolute happiness, similarly there’s no existence of absolute acceptance. I think that’s the beauty of life. Absoluteness brings about a certain level of rigidity, and rigidity obstructs functionality. If life isn’t functional, then there’s no point of being content and accepting. We just have to "accept" that we are powerless in front of the forces of nature and life. We expect so much from life that we fool ourselves into thinking that we control it. We begin to imagine that we can force our methods on life and shape it the way we want to. As Faraaz Kazi once wrote, “Life goes on… with or without you.” Therefore, I guess it’s better to want and expect less, and to accept and be content more.