Blogs on a Life Time of What If's?

Acceptance

Acceptance is a hard lesson to learn, it is in our nature to fight that which we don’t like about ourselves and others. In my case it was the realisation that I was willing to conform undermining the person that I knew myself to be in order to be accepted by those around me. This created a vortex of frustration. Now that I look back, I realise this was a really dumb thing to do. It served no purpose and it wasn’t fair on those I cared about.

We grow independent of the genetic garden from which we are bred not to be bound by expectations nor tied up in yellow ribbon imprisoning dreams, hopes and desires. In an ideal world, family is the safety net where we fall, confident of the support, love and assistance until we are well enough to continue our chosen path. Unfortunately, the world is not ideal, it is inhabited by humans who by nature are quixotic in their desires and beliefs. Much like the caveman, modern man is the hunter, fighting for survival by fine tuning moral values to meet perceived needs.

Relationships drift between warm and cold filtering through gaps in communication and self interest. I saw an incidence of this over a financial issue. They were good friends, close in fact, he was a financial consultant and she was in business. Because of their friendship, she followed his advise in good faith only to discover years later that she had lost everything. His response was that she was to blame for not reading the contractual agreement made at the beginning of the transaction. She was both hurt and confused by his charge, when she knew she had diligently read every clause and had been assured it read exactly what had been promised at their various meetings. That he had misled her in his assurances was painful, but worse was yet to come. In the hopes he would offer due diligence and pay some recompense she made the choice to default on the option of taking the case to court. In this she was disappointed.

As the lady was telling her story, I found myself travelling back in time to situations where I had adjusted my moral compass to suit another, justifying it as a necessity to maintain the peace. A few weeks later, I found myself drowning in white hot anger while working on a painting which stirred up emotions I hadn’t been willing to acknowledge. With silent tears, my hand reached for the palette knife recklessly smearing the figure with wild gashes of red paint. Once the storm had abated, I realised the anger was towards myself for being such an idiot. For most of my life I had put my family above me, almost godlike in their sanctity, when in fact they were, like me, flesh and blood, no better or no worse than I. At that moment my father, mother and brother became my past.