Be Careful of Acceptance
Be Careful of Acceptance
There is this guy who was a pro gamer. He was so good that he beat everyone to win a championship and was rewarded with a lot of money to buy his mum a big masion on a private island. Shortly after that, he had a major operation on his left harm and he was diagnosed with cancer. It was later discovered that some of the cancer was in his brain as well and to operate that, he might become paralized on the left side of the body. The other option was death.
Well, he chose the operation despite the warnings of the doctor. After the operation, he immediately got back to finding a way to live despite the doctor’s instruction to be patient. His doctor asked him if he was afraid of patience. He said, “No, I am not. I am afraid of acceptance.”
That struck me. A lot of us have accepted our fate. Maybe you tried to dance and people said you were a bad dancer; so, you quit dancing. Or you wrote an article and you got a feedback that you are a bad writer; so, you stopped writing. Or any other thing you may have tried and because you got a negative feedback or you got no cheer, you accepted that you are bad at that thing.
Maybe you are right – you are very bad at that thing but you were totally wrong to have given up. Because, we are always bad at that thing when we start out and that is why it is called starting. Just the same way it takes a while for a car to accelerate, it is the same way, it takes some time to be great at a thing.
You see, as a kid, I took to learning shoe making on my own and along the line, I was doing some shoe repair. One day, I helped my aunt repair her shoe and after some days, I over heard her telling someone to look for a propoer shoe repairer as what I did had got spoilt again. I was broken and I stopped on that very day to do anything related to shoe making or repair.
You know what I did, I accepted that I was a bad shoe maker (which is not a bad thing) but I also accepted that I am never going to be a better shoe maker, which is where the problem was.
Acceptance is a mindset that we do not trust what the future holds. It is you blocking the many possibilities that you can be better than you are today. It is a mindset that you do not believe in yourself at all.
However, acceptance can be a good thing if used rightly.
You can accept not to be a mediocre.
You can accept not to give up.
You can accept that you are going to marry the right person.
You can accept that you can be better at what you are currently doing.
So, maybe you are a bad writer, bad podcaster, bad vlogger or blogger, or whatever you are bad at, the only acceptance is that you can be better.
So, go and be better.