Acceptance with Amazement

I can’t remember where I read it; but it went something like this:  A patient of Dr. Carl Jung walked into Jung’s office and morosely announced “Dr. Jung, I just lost my job.”  The doctor replied “Congratulations!” 

Dr. Jung knew that acceptance is the key to serenity, the key to joy, and the key to peace.  It is often difficult to grasp that, whatever is happening right now, is exactly the way it is supposed to be.  Sometimes we experience acceptance with resignation.  We might say “ah, well, it is what it is” and sadly resign ourselves to our fate.  But I think there is a better way.

We can choose to experience acceptance with a sense of amazement.  We don’t have to dread the unknown as long as we have faith and trust that everything will work out as it is supposed to.  When people come in or out of our lives, accept that sometimes we have people for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  Those who are here for a reason or a season will come and they will go. If we are lucky, we will hear the message that they were supposed to bring.

We will be hired, we might be fired.  Companies will lay-off and perhaps close down all together.  We might be lucky and find one lifelong love. We might be even luckier and find several.  Love might come in strange packages - a pet we rescue (maybe two) or from a child who had been waiting to hear the most wonderful words “you are being adopted.”  Or from new friends or old, estranged family members or a next door neighbor whom we never had the extra minute to get to know. 

How marvelous it is to wonder where the next good thing might come from instead of peeking around corners with dread because we are always expecting bad news.  Expect the good instead.  Practice acceptance with amazement and let the good times roll!