Balance And Spirit

Three Simple Steps to Peaceful Daily Living

By Greg ⋅ December 13, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Subscribe By Email ⋅ Post a comment

Irritated?

Life seems to have a funny knack for filling each day with different varieties of irritating situations. If you are a commuter, then quite possibly the only thing you know for sure when you wake up every morning is that something or someone is going to get on your nerves within the next twelve to sixteen hours.

Sometimes it’s the guy sitting next to you on the bus or the train who takes up almost two seats and is discussing rather personal issues loudly on his cell phone. Sometimes it’s the construction workers who callously close the same lane every morning and never show any particular consideration for your timetable. It can even be as soon as you get out of bed and immediately begin to shiver because your landlord just got the heating bill and is trying to cut back on his expenses.

These small irritations have a tendency to pile up and cause headaches, migraines, stress, anger, or depression.

So why am I reminding you of daily frustrations that you try so hard to avoid? Because there is a way to deal with them that relieves the symptoms of daily frustration. Eliminate frustration through acceptance.

Understand this concept, be ready and willing to apply it,and you are ready to embark on a peaceful life journey. Please allow me to explain.

Acceptance

Yes, acceptance. Applying acceptance means recognizing that everyone and everything around you is exactly how it is supposed to be at that exact moment.

Our frustration at the world around us usually stems out of our discontent with it. We often become dissatisfied with our surroundings because we can think of a million different ways that they could be better. We become obsessed with the phrase “if only”. If only the train would come on time, if only the homeless man wouldn’t sing, if only my wife wouldn’t snore, if only my boss would show more compassion, etc.,

Acceptance eliminates our dissatisfaction. For example, rather than ruminating on the thought of how disturbed you are by the loud obnoxious person next to you on the train, you could stop, and tell yourself that the person is exactly the way that they are supposed to be. That they are acting in the only way that they know how to act, because their life up to that point was a series of events, unknown to you, that shaped their personality in such a way that to you they appear to be loud and obnoxious. You can then breathe a sigh of relief because there is no longer any rational use to pondering about that person’s defects. No matter how much mental energy you employ at being irritated by them, they will remain themselves; simply because that is the way they are supposed to be at that exact moment.

How?

Here are the three simple steps to practicing acceptance in your daily living:

1. Acknowledge the situation or person that is making you irritated.
2. Accept that the person is doing exactly what he/she is supposed to be doing at that exact moment, and that no matter how much you may want the person to be different they are going to continue to be the way that they are.
3. Remove the negative thoughts from your mind, and rest assured that there is a reason beyond your knowledge for whatever is happening and that there is no need for you to further contemplate the situation.

Why?

Whether you are an agnostic, an atheist, or a steady and active church member you would most likely agree that the world we live in is governed by laws. No matter how hard I may try, I cannot transcend the thick walls of a bank vault and fill up my wallet, nor can I surpass the laws of gravity and fly to work when the trains are running late. These are of course laws that deal solely with the material world and have nothing to do with the people around us, but there is a social lesson to be learned from them.

The lesson is that people, very much like a thick bank vault or the laws of gravity, have limitations and parameters. What do I mean by that?

I mean that the people who you may find irritating are acting the way that they are because to them that is the only way they can act at the time. Seeing as how we are not omniscient, we don’t know everything that happens to everyone around us, so we cannot be aware of the situations in other people’s lives that cause them to act the way that they do. All we need to know is that we do not need to take it personally because the person would still act that way whether we were around them or not. We need to accept that that is just the way they are, and are acting the only way they know how to act.

Experiment with this new way of perceiving our surroundings and it may bring you the peace and serenity you seek.