I agree totally - acceptance of what happened is a pre-requisite for learning from what happened. Actually I would take it one step further and say that you should not just *accept* what happens, you should *appreciate* it. To me acceptance means "yeah OK, I can live with that", while appreciation means "I appreciate this happening right now, with all the good AND bad implications". Does anybody else see this distinction?
To take it one step further, acceptance seems to me to be a little more passive whereas appreciating something is an active, conscious decision to find the good in that thing. And to me at least, appreciating what happens puts me in a learning mode. Marei's post cleared one more thing up for me, namely that my thinking has been "Hey, if everyone just accepts whatever happens, nobody will ever learn." But nobody reacts that way do they? We humans are learning machines, we can't NOT learn. Cheers Alexander Marei Kiele wrote:
About letting go and getting things done, about accepting and learning and about past, future and Now - I've been thinking a lot these last two days. And Chris, Ted, Alexander, Lisa, Shay and Harrison - thank you so much for sharing, your thoughts have been extremely helpful to me. With accepting what happened I find myself doing better and better. But letting go plans and dreams and visions for the future - this seemed to be not only hard but not even desirable. And then today, just by the way, I recognized two voices in me (kind of arguing). And I want to ask if any of you knows these voices, too. One of them saying: If you are not heading for a better future and not working hard on it (not only for yourself but for others) - you are just not worth living the life you live (thanks Lisa for our conversation in Bramstrup). And I decided not to agree with that voice. And the other one was saying: If you don't concentrate on what you do and on what you're aiming for and work hard for it you will never reach anything. And suddenly I realized that this voice is a relative of those saying, open space will not work because we always need somebody being in charge and controlling the work. And I said no to that voice, too. The thought popped up in my mind that perhaps we don't have to plan and concentrate on learning. Maybe accepting and learning is just ONE thing - not two different. Maybe when I am open and live with an expanded Now my learning happens by the way. For example I remember learning English: In which situation my learning is more fun and even more sucessful? If I concentrate on my “mistakes” and on what vocabulary I “should” use next time? Or if I just talk and am open to the impressions around me? I do remember my English beeing most fluent when I am authentic, not controlling myself, not controlling the outcome. If I just DO (as Chris sujested) and go step by step - suddenly I've got things done. One of the sentences I love in “Expanding Our Now” is: “Somewhere along the line we came up with the absurd notion that if everybody did just what they wanted to, nothing would get done.” (S.33). Referring to this I wish to say: “Somewhere along the line we came up with the absurd notion that if we accepted what happened, we would never learn.” But we do - and better than ever, don't we? Marei * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
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