Accepting Things

For most people I guess accepting things is really simple, but maybe that's just what it seems like.

Me, I can't help thinking what if. I think I'm cursed with eternal wishfulness.
What if I'm never satisfied? What if I always want more than I have right now, no matter how much I eventually get?

I wonder how other people deal with that kind of dissatisfation. Where do you put away the emptiness? All the things that never happened, the things you never did, the places you haven't seen, and the people you can't touch anymore?

Maybe you have to push them all into the future and just tell yourself someday.
Maybe you have to give some of them up entirely and forget.
Or is there a way to just accept them? To know they're there and not worry about them?

Hi, Plaid

I wouldn't give up on anything, or anyone. Life is WAY too weird and unpredictable (or I wouldn't have worked the jobs I did, or heard from people I've resigned to never hearing from again, or have ended up in America in the first place).

This is partly why I have trouble with long-term plans - you just never know .

Bottom line - never give up! Deal with what's currently in your life, and let future bring what it will.

Exactly. Planning for anything in the long term rarely works out. If you are the type of person who loves to plan, go ahead and make a roadmap. But don't expect it to work perfectly, and don't get disappointed if it doesn't. If something you wanted doesn't fall in your lap, something else, completely unexpected will!

Don't plan too far ahead it never works*. Try new things, meet new people and try to enjoy the present.

*I'd be in my final training as a aircraft maintainence engineer if I didn't decide to go to uni on a whim. So much for plans eh.

My long term ambition was always to go in the RAF, when qualified, as a commisioned officer and train to work on the electrical systems of the aircrafts. But when your earning a wage and enjoying the job that your doing it's easy to forget about long term goals that you set yourself that don't seem so neccesary anymore. Pity really because i'm sure i'd of enjoyed the lifestyle, and the hub caps especially.

But then my ambition to take over the world wouldn't have to involve robots that really don't seem to like me. Damn robots.

See, my ambition was to become a professional inheritor. But damned relatives refuse to leave me money when they conk off

"What if" seemed a waste of time and energy to me. I opted for the approach: whichever road I took, whatever decisions I made, it's all in the past, I can't change it anymore, and whatever happened it was an experience that helped shape me into who I am.
This way of thinking really helps me take things as they come, neither good nor bad, just events that help me grow. Believing in reincarnation also helps putting things into perspective (having numerous lifetimes to work it all out and such ).
It usually works well and keeps me optimistic. The only times it can sometimes fail is when thinking of how my mother won't be there when I finish uni or get married or have a child. And 5 minutes after that I remind myself that her energy/soul didn't vanish, just moved on, and she might be there in another form.

Changing my way of thinking and channeling it in this way was one of the main reasons I got out of my depression and I warmly recommend it
(Shortly afterwards I joined the Board, so there IS some proof it works )

What if questions from the past are dealt by me in a similar fashion to Lipi:

The important part being for me, "I can't change it.". Sure, if I'd studied harder I might've got a reasonable degree, but it's too late, if I dwelt on it it'd get me down, so I don't.


What if's for the future are harder... I do wonder about them sort of things occasionally. The only thing I can do is to actively chase them, or I can forget about them. I don't dwell on not having acheived it yet, for the above reasons.

The future is something to think about changing (or diverting yourself along a certain path), the past isn't something that you can change, so why think about changing it?

(Orrdos, I like your new avatar! )

I don't care for the "what if" game, because people tend to assume that if only they did something different in the past, their present would have turned out better!

HOWEVER...

- what if you had applied for such and such job (and got ran over by a bus on your way to the office?)

- what if you asked someone out (and that person later left you for whoever they're currently happy with, leaving you with 3 kids, an unpaid mortgage and a broken heart?)

- what if you had studied more (and your brain imploded?)

The "what if" game works both ways. Yes, you COULD have done something differently, but who says it would automatically lead to better things? You just don't know!

So don't bother guessing .

(P.S. Hugs Lipi.)

I kind of think more like this...what if I hadn't moved abroad. I'd be stuck in a crappy public school in Britain smoking, taking drugs and failing school (I was certainly in the right crowd to go in that direction). I could have been just another narrow minded brit with no view for anything outside my own backgarden, ignorant to the rest of the world.
I was back in Scotland over the summer and this is honestly what they were like from my point of view.

As for the future my most recent decision was … should I go to India or finish the course I'm doing here.

what if when I get to India I have to move half way through IB and have to forfeit my exams leaving me with no qualifications, and an excellent education with no way of proving it. Then again, I hate where I am and this country is driving me crazy...would it be easier to pack it in and start fresh?

what if I stayed where I am and took my gcse s then moved to India...I may end up lost at a new school next year taking on a new culture and new system with a completely different way of approaching education with the IB on my back as well.

The endless possibilities had my head reeling for days after the decision was made...and still does. It's not been long enough to know if I made the right one, and it continues to worry me.

I try to look on the bright side...I'd be worse of in Scotland, I'm spoilt rotten here and have an amazing opportunity to see the world... but at least in Scotland I could have kept friends for more than a year and wouldn't be ripped out of my life and told to re-start every few years.

Then again...the experience alone makes it worthwhile. How many people can brag living in 4 soon 5 countries, going to international schools and probably has the ability to name a friend in almost every country in the world.

It’s a huge thing to look at the ‘what if’s but it’s necessary to see where we went wrong, to understand the decisions we made and learn from them if they are the wrong ones.

One thing I have learnt is to never plan your life to far ahead and in to much detail. I have decisions made that are flexible. I know what I want to study at Uni but I don’t make any more decisions about where or even when. I don’t even know which country I will finish schooling in and as for where to study at uni…I’m still narrowing down the continents.

The most improtant thing to keep in mind is the past, it's essential...it's what put you where you are. It doesnt really matter whether it's good or bad because you should be looking at it in a positive way anyway. So you made the wrong decision there, make the right one next time. Just keep moving forward.

edit - quotes

Making an effort to be grateful is a good way to ease the want. It is a better use of your time and energy then rethinking the past. You are always going to want, it is human to want. We get bored with what we have, we like some things so much we want more of them, there are good reasons for always wanting the next thing. The trick is in being flexible and not forgetting to be grateful.

There is no way of knowing how much time we have, of knowing just how everything will work out. The best we can do is meet each day head on and trust that the decisions we make are the best we can do with the information we have at the time, and that if we get the chance to do better we will do it.

It is no good beating up on yourself, too many others are willing and able to do that service for you. Accepting things gets easier, but some times it does hurt just like when you first learned about the loss. It is okay to feel bad sometimes, and it is also okay to be happy in the face of adversity.

The short version.

Congratulations Plaid. You are human.

The long version will be forthcoming.