Tag Archives: learning to accept

Accepting while kicking and screaming

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating

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“I’d rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.” – Albert Einstein

My life is not all about dating, but in dating it seems is where I learn the most lessons.  Lessons about men, about the world and most importantly, about myself.  Dating keeps me vulnerable and keeps me honest.  It shows me my flaws and my weaknesses. It puts my ego in check.

Each man I date, and actually anyone I encounter, is a lesson.  It is never about them as human beings, as men.  It is always about them as lessons. Each person and situation helps me become a better version of myself, or so I hope. Otherwise the thought would be too dreadful. To think that some things are just meaningless and a waste of time is hard for me to live with that.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Dating forces me to look inside myself.  It forces me to confront my feelings, actions and reactions.  It forces me to try to understand why I feel the way I feel.  Why I do the things I do.  It forces me to look in an invisible mirror and see what is my culpability in a potential relationship when things don’t work out.  And, as you can tell if you have been following my blog for awhile is that things haven’t worked out yet.  Working out would mean I have a boyfriend, I am in a relationship.

Today I want to write about the need for Acceptance. 

I know I have written about that before, probably more than once. Actually, several times. I clearly struggle with that. I have read somewhere that the lesson only ends when we learn it.  I feel I have been in the same classroom staring at the same notebook for years.  And one of the lessons that persists the most is Acceptance.

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” – Albert Einstein

Hi, I am a Control-freak.

I need to accept what I cannot control.  Accept that things don’t go according to plan.  Accept that some things are over and they are never returning.  Accept that not everything can be fixed. Accept that some things will never be no matter how much I want them and how hard I fight.

I want to be the captain of my own ship.  I want to control my own destiny.  I forget that while I can control my boat, no matter how small or large, I cannot control the weather, the waves and the ocean.

A calm, peaceful voyage would not teach me anything.  A calm ocean would allow me to just coast. An ocean without waves would bore me to tears.  I would never be the best form of myself if challenges were not thrown my way.  I would never be able to prove the kind of captain I can really be if I were not tested with a violent storm every now and then.

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.” – Albert Einstein

As I am contemplating an impeding 5th date with a guy that seems very promising I am confronted with accepting that it is okay if he doesn’t follow the blueprint that I have in my mind.

I create mental pictures of the way I want things to go, to be. I have this perfect idea of a perfect date, the perfect kiss, the perfect words to come out of his lips. I know how he needs to behave, when to call, what to say.

No one, no matter how perfect is going to fulfill exactly the dream I created in my mind.  No one will be the perfect age, have the perfect profession, make the perfect amount of money, say the right things, and have the perfect actions.

That person doesn’t exist! People are moody, they do the unexpected, they change their mind, they disappoint.  I should know!  I do all of that and more.

One of the definitions of Accept according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:
To endure without protest or reaction.

What?  I am not a doormat.  That if often how I see acceptance, as being a doormat and just laying there and not fighting for what I want.  Acceptance then becomes a betrayal to myself and my dreams.  I see it as settling.  Accepting less than I deserve. Accepting a dream less than perfect.  Accepting a flawed man.  I am deserving of more, I am deserving of all. I don’t need to settle.  I don’t want to settle.

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein

I create expectations that no one can fulfill. Sometimes I even think I want to be disappointed. In the end it is never about somebody else. It is always about me. It always up to me.

I have to tell myself that things can still be okay and good even if they don’t follow the blueprint I had on my mind.

Acceptance doesn’t have to mean accepting less than I deserve. Acceptance means accepting that not everything is under my control. It is being okay with things not being perfect at that moment in time or being perfect all the time.

I think the real key is not really accepting or not accepting, that comes after.  The key is getting to the bottom of what I want for my life, what makes me happier and what contributes to me becoming the best version of myself.

In dating I need to be clear in what type of man I want to be my life partner. What is really important to me, and what is only a teenage fantasy?

“When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.” – Albert Einstein

Sounds confusing, even complicated, but in the end is really simple.  We have that little voice inside ourselves that guides us to what is right and wrong, to what feels right and what feels wrong.  The crux is to listen to that voice.

Sometimes we can’t hear that little voice because we are too busy stuffing it down.  We go out of our way to silence it.  We surround ourselves with things that makes us momentarily happy and we forget that voice. We silence it with any distraction we can, tv, people, food, etc. Sometimes we hear it but we pretend we don’t.  If we acknowledge it than we would be forced to act, so it is easier to play deaf, to feign ignorance.

As I am putting the final touches on this post I realize that all I have written here has already been written before in a more concise way.  My whole post is the Serenity Prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

So please forgive me if you wasted your time with my rambling.  Welcome to the voices inside my mind and my heart. I started this post out of confusion with my feelings.  Am I less confused?

No, I am as confused as ever.  I just need to be okay with things being confused for awhile.  I need prayer to guide me, I need silence to listen.  I need writing to keep my sanity.  I need this blog to keep me honest.  I need you to set me straight.

Today I was in a Albert Einstein kind of mood.  For a physicist I find him more spiritual than some so called spiritual teachers around.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

 

The art of restraint

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, EX Files, Finding Me

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“You build walls to fortify your heart,
and blame on others for your loneliness.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

I stepped away from a relationship with the guy mentioned in the previous post.  It was too much, too soon and I just felt closed in.  He agrees with some of the readers here that I should see a therapist to help me sort out my feelings.  He, and my friends here, are probably right but for now I will stay put and will continue following my heart and trying to figure things out on my own.  Stubborn is my middle name!

He agreed to just be friends for now, even though he says he hopes I will change my mind. Unfortunately this Aries never changes her mind!  There is a first time for everything but I would not hold my breath if I were him.

***

So back to the dating pool:

This guy from E-harmony calls me.  It is the first time we are speaking.  We had only gone through the questions on the site, so we didn’t really have much information on each other.  I imagine this phone call would be a good way to get a lot information about each other without wasting too much time on back and forth emails.

For the first time ever I don’t monopolize the conversation.  I normally have so much to say that I keep cutting people off – I am not proud of that and I continuously work on being able to listen without interrupting.  I am super proud of myself because I am actually allowing this guy to talk.

Unfortunately for over 30 minutes all he did was complain about his last girlfriend.  He went on and on how she didn’t show her true self until months into the relationship, so he felt betrayed, etc, etc.

I wanted to be polite and thought he just needed to vent so I let him keep going.  I also knew that he was only accomplishing one thing:  Turning me completely off!  I managed to say a few words here and there to try be a part of the conversation but 90% of the talking was done by him.

I think at some point he realized he was talking too much because he said: “I am going to let you talk”, but he proceeded to talk anyway.  At this point I am thinking to myself: Should I point out to him that this is not the best way to talk to a prospective date?  I didn’t.  I sensed he would not welcome constructive criticism, and honestly I felt I didn’t have the energy to point out the error of his ways.  He had already lost me by now.

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” ― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

He finally stops talking about the ex-girlfriends (yes, plural! he mentioned another one that he felt wasn’t honest with him either). I am thinking that perhaps now he will ask me questions, something to get to know me.  He did ask me a question:

“Do you think you are interested in me?”

“I don’t know!  I know nothing about you and we didn’t even meet in person”, I said.

He says: “But we have been talking on the phone for 30 minutes, that should give you an idea”

I said:  “The idea that I get from our 30 minutes conversation is that you really don’t like your ex-girlfriends and feel they tricked you.  We have not talked about us, about our likes, dislikes, plans for the future, etc. You have not asked me anything, and I didn’t have a chance to ask you anything.”

I guess he didn’t like my answer because he then starts telling me that he can tell a lot from the way a person talks, by the velocity of the speech, by how loud or soft someone speaks. He then said I speak too fast, too loud and too aggressive on the phone. He also said that I didn’t make him feel good about himself. He said that women should have a softer welcoming tone of voice, and be more agreeable specially when meeting a man for the first time”.

I so wanted to lash out and say: “It is not that I am aggressive, the problem is that you are too weak to deal with an assertive woman.  It is not my job to make you feel good about yourself! Perhaps you should work on making yourself feel good first and then date.  I am not here to validate you and make you feel like a man”

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” ― Aristotle

But I didn’t!  What would be the point?

At this point I am congratulating myself on my restraint. Before the break-up, before Kabbalah, before the many self-help books, before years of writing this blog, before age and experience, I would not have listened quietly to that.  I would have let that affect me personally.  That criticism would cut like a knife and I would end up saying exactly what I thought of him.

But not now, not anymore.  I have to be honest and say that for a second, for a brief second, I thought to myself: is he right about this?  Then I decided to take that stupid notion out of my mind. He is entitled to feel whatever he feels, but that doesn’t make it true. I have never been accused of being aggressive, even when disagreeing with someone I do it kindly.  I do speak fast and somewhat loud, but I am a Brazilian New Yorker, so that is a given.  However most men tell me they find my voice and accent sexy.

So I listened to everything in complete silence.  He went on and on, and if I hadn’t put a stop to it he would probably have gone another 30 minutes on how bad I sound on the phone.  Finally I just said: “I agree we are not a match.  Best of luck to you!” and I hung up.

What saddens me a bit is that I try to leave people and places better than I found them but in this case I knew it was a losing battle. It was like talking to a wall the two times I tried to say something. He had his opinion formed about the ex-girlfriends and about myself.

“When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.” –Mahatma Gandhi

At the end of the day I am happy with myself because I see progress.  I have been able to let someone monopolize the conversation without interruption.  I have been able to not react and “fight back”. Most important I found out that:

  1. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all
  2. I no longer need to always point out the obvious
  3. I don’t need to have the last word
  4. I don’t need to prove I am right
  5. I don’t need to justify myself
  6. I don’t need to please everyone
  7. I don’t need to be understood by all
  8. It is enough to know that I am true to myself and I speak my truth
  9. It  is enough to know that my heart is in the right place

Some people will love me, some will hate me, some will try to pick me apart, but that is a cost I am happy to pay for the honor and right of being myself and not attempt to change to fit in.

“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” ― Winston S. Churchill