Speak Easy Note #42 - Acceptance and Appreciation

As we approach the end of November, I want to offer words of Thanksgiving. The past two years have been full of challenge for so many people. Financial difficulties have been enormous and unemployment has been at record highs. It's hard to be thankful when the pressures are extreme and when there's such a strong sense of precariousness throughout our world.


I often write about perspective and its important contribution to how we experience challenge and difficulty and to what we can do to overcome them.

Acceptance and Appreciation are the keys to

> adjusting our perspective to one that is healthy and productive,

> facing the reality of our challenges,

> recognizing the abundance that exists around us,

> finding realistic solutions for demanding situations, and

> focusing on what we have rather than what is missing.

Acceptance is taking in all that is rather than focusing on all that isn’t. Acceptance is quite different from settling, acquiescing, or giving up. Acceptance means  letting go of perfection and other impossible unrealistic fantasies and taking in and seeing all that exists.

When I think of Acceptance, I’m reminded of Gilda Radner who told us, “It’s Always Something”

Appreciation goes beyond Acceptance and encompasses simple, basic, and true thankfulness for whatever you have. We live in a material world that distorts value and creates a consumer mentality. Children are growing up with so many possessions and toys that it becomes more and more difficult for them to ever comprehend that “The best things in life are free.” There really is no price or way to purchase the richest and best parts of life, like health, love, and friendship.

Appreciation brings to mind the wise saying:

“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a person who had no feet.”

Here is a wonderful Charles Dickens quote about Appreciation:

“Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

ACCEPT what is. APPRECIATE what you have.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Until next time,
The Wordsmith
Author of
SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success