Accept Everything.
Accept everything that life gives to you with open arms.
Accept both, the miracles and the curses.
The failures and the wins.
The adventures and the mundane.
Acceptance is acknowledging that your Life, the substrate in which you exist will flow and dictate its own path.
Acceptance is setting aside your ego and being ready to adapt to this Life, with the faith that you have what it takes to still find your way.
Very often, we try too hard to direct the narrative of our existence. Instead of experiencing Life as it flows, we get caught up trying to steer direction towards some arbitrary idea that we have of ourselves. It is not based on any reality, but instead, is simply the result of a complex mixture of our upbringing, our experiences, the information that we consume and a touch of our genetics. But, move your frame of reference into the mind of the next person, and their beliefs and "truths" are wildly different from yours. There are as many perspectives and ideas on how a good life should be lived, as there are grains of sand on the beach. So, then, does it make any sense to anchor your goal on any one perspective? That's like going to the beach and spending the whole day at the ice cream stand, just because you like ice cream.
Be open. Let nature run it's course. Live without struggle. This, in it's essence, is the Daoist philosophy of Wu Wei.
"…the sage acts by doing nothing,
Teaches without speaking,
Attends all things without making claim on them,
Works for them without making them dependent,
Demands no honor for his deed.
Because he demands no honor,
He will never be dishonored."
- Tao Te Ching
It's important to understand the distinction that accepting the flow of life does not mean living an apathetic life. It does not mean you shouldn't strive to live a life worth living or not be excited by what lies ahead of you, or be lazy to go after things you want in life. Rather, it allows us to stop exhaustively forcing each step through life, being stressed about our outcomes, over-analyzing the past in the hopes of perfecting the future, while we miss out on the pleasant rhythm of the moment. You are still in control of choosing to focus on the things that are meaningful to you, as Life takes you on its journey. "Ride the wave", if you will, and act spontaneously.
Just stop trying to control the outcome of your story. Let it unfold as it will. Your only job is to not stand in its way and experience the beauty.
From a pragmatic point of view, this philosophy is merely a strategy to prevent getting exhausted from life. To conserve your energy and focus it in ways that will make Life more meaningful. Think about the things that may exhaust you in your life. Social anxiety about what people will think of you, worry about how your life will turn out if you do not get into the university of your choice, burn-out at work trying to prove your intelligence and ability to work hard, skepticism about those who hold different beliefs from the ones we do. All of these examples come from the fear that our stories may not align with the scripts we have written in our minds. But let's face it, our stories all have the same ending. So what if it does not play out the way you wanted? It's still ashes to ashes. That's the simplicity, and in essence, the beauty of it all. Meaning will be found in simply navigating the experiences that you find yourselves in. Life will do the rest.
So. Accept everything that life gives to you with open arms. Find meaning in navigating the experiences that you find yourselves in instead of fighting against the journey you are on. Trust your instincts to live spontaneously. You will find your way.
