21 Days of OK: Accept What You Can’t Control

Sometimes life is frustrating, disappointing, or overwhelming.

When we’re facing moments like those, we need to hear that it’s OK. That we’re OK. That life will be OK.

Welcome to week three of “21 Days of OK.” Click here for Part 1: Give Yourself Permission and Part 2: Give Yourself Grace.

Week Three: Choose to accept what you can’t control

Some days life doesn’t cooperate. We hit a traffic jam. We live through a pandemic. We don’t get the opportunity we’d been hoping for. There are hundreds of factors outside our control that can make life difficult. We’ll be a lot happier in life if we can accept the realities of life that we can’t control. We can choose to be OK even when life doesn’t cooperate.

Here are a week’s worth of situations where we need to make peace with those things we cannot control.

1. It’s OK to need a break. We were not created to be on call 24/7. We need to know our limits and be intentional about seeking rest when we need to recharge. This is not weakness; it’s wisdom. We may wish we don’t have limits, but we do, and we’ll be more OK with life when we honor those limits.

2. It’s OK when a door closes. A closed door may feel like the end of a dream, but it doesn’t need to be. Instead of seeing a closed door as failure, we can take it as an indication that the path we were on wasn’t the right one at this time. Closed doors are OK because there are other options. A closed door guides us to choose a different path. The new path might not lead to exactly the same place, but it could lead somewhere even better.

3. It’s OK when I feel mad. Emotions are neither good nor bad. They just are. Therefor feeling mad, (or sad, or frustrated) is not wrong. The feeling of anger is our body’s way of telling us something is not right. We can accept the anger and consider the issue behind it without lashing out and acting inappropriately. Sometimes life treats you unfairly and it’s normal to feel angry. Just remember there’s a difference between “I feel mad.” and “I am mad.” You can acknowledge your feelings without becoming them and letting them take over.

4. It’s OK to dislike pumpkin spice. Every fall, I begin to feel like I’m the only person in the country who doesn’t love pumpkin spice everything. I feel like an oddball for disliking what everyone else apparently loves. Such is life. Sometimes it’s OK to be the oddball. To not fit in with the majority, even when it means feeling left out. Because pretending to like something you don’t just to fit in won’t make it taste any better, anyway.

5. It’s OK to let go. Our lives can change, slowly or suddenly. Whether it’s a new phase of life or a global pandemic, our realities keep changing. And with every change there are new things to accept, and old things to let go of. It can be difficult to let go of goals, aspirations, or opinions, even when they no longer serve us. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that letting go is not quitting or failing. It is part pf the process for moving forward.

6. It’s OK to not know something. I am not a brain surgeon. I suspect you aren’t either. Which means neither of us knows very much about the physiology of the human brain, or how to repair it. There is no shame in admitting my ignorance about brain surgery. And yet, we often hesitate to admit when we don’t know something. When you really think about it, pretending we know something when we don’t is the stupid choice. Smart people admit their lack of knowledge so they can learn something new. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it’s OK to say, “I don’t know.”

7. It’s OK to give others room to be OK. I’ve chosen to finish my series with this thought. Just as I’ve been suggesting ways you can be accept yourself, including your dreams and your imperfections, so also we can choose to accept others, even when they make different choices than we do. In this day of heightened tension between groups, it’s good to remember that differences are normal and healthy. We can agree to disagree and still value each other. My OK doesn’t look quite like yours.

And that’s OK.

What realities of life are you struggling to make peace with? I hope you can a way to be OK with them.