Acceptance & Control. Control & Acceptance.
by Sarah May Clarkson
I first heard our friend Bob utter a phrase – the phrase – that has resounded with me, lo these many years: Control the controllable. Three simple words replete with meaning and significance about what can be accepted, what is acceptable. The two ideas – control and acceptance – seem to me intertwined and worthy of thoughtful reflection.
The student population often feels overwhelmed and woefully unprepared for the things life hurls at them – but then so do I, so do many of the fully grown-up people I know. Bob’s advice is not banal and it is not glib. When things are spinning, perhaps out of control, a person does have some agency and control: when and if you eat, how much sleep you get, how you respond to people and circumstances, where you spend your effort and energy, who you choose to spend your unencumbered time with. Exercising just a little bit of control can be a boon and a boost. My yoga teacher has reminded me / us again and again to take a long, deep swallow to calm and soothe the nervous system. When students come into my orbit upset, mad, frustrated, sad, I suggest that they swallow, purposefully, carefully, and do it again, to regain the center and their equilibrium. I don’t know if it works for them, but it works for me.
I’ve done a lot of mindful swallowing in the years since COVID and I am grateful for the small actions within my power to help me get my feet. Swallowing and breathing. People: don’t forget to breathe, don’t forget to breathe fully and deeply. To have breath these days, to have life and consciousness, is a gift.
J. and I caught up in February after a long absence from each other. So good to talk. I don’t know how we got onto the topic of acceptance, but we both nodded and sighed and wondered aloud about what acceptance signifies. Are there red lines? At what point is acceptance unacceptable? What does acceptance cost a person? To all these questions, I do not have an answer because it will be different for everyone. Acceptance loops back to control. If a person decides that a situation or circumstance is not acceptable, might he or she lose control, compromise a relationship, a job, a way of life? Perhaps. But there might be the opposite result: empowerment, powerful and righteous indignation, positive change.
I think here of the Serenity Prayer, oftentimes said at church, but most often recited at the start of A.A. meetings. We all know it, but it’s worth repeating here: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Twenty-five simple words, resonant whether or not you believe in God or a god. Not sure about you, but I have been much pre-occupied these days with the state of the world, what I can and cannot control, what is acceptable. Or not. I have failed and I am flawed in my response to all of it. Sigh. Sure wish I could ramp up my bandwidth for more action and less thinking. But you can never know when the right moment will present itself.
What has particularly inspired consideration of control and acceptance is a novel that I recently finished and which planted the kernel of this column in my head: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Set in Chicago in the mid- to late 1980s and in Paris in the 1920s and 2015. It was a birthday gift to me from Steph. Not sure I would have read it without her making a present of the book. A remarkable array of characters, an impressive imagining of lives lived and challenges met. The first review on the inside front cover says: “An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during a time of crisis.” That’s what novels – strong, accomplished novels – do: they give us a playbook that we might adopt and draw strength from. The whole story (well, the multiple and interconnected stories) in The Great Believers is about control / lack of control and what is acceptable. Or not. I will confess that when I finished it today, I got choked up – and I don’t remember doing that at the end of a book in years – because I was so invested in the characters, in their lives and their losses. I recommend it.
