Hello Friends and welcome to my blog! I am brand new to this idea of "blogging" but I needed a space to verbalize my thoughts and get some feedback from others with Anyway, the picture above is from Blue Mountain Lake. In the past few years, my wife Stephanie and I have becoming a bit more outdoorsy and for our recent 15 year anniversary, we stayed in a cabin at Blue Mountain Lake. One morning, we decided it would be fun to walk on Blue Mountain Lake. The picture above is take from the CENTER of Blue Mountain Lake. For me, it was awe inspiring.
It is possible that some of you who read this blog may be tempted to ask....Why is the title of this Blog "Cheerful Acceptance"? There is a story at the heart of this answer.
One of the many roles I play each day is father. I have two beautiful daughters and they are the joy of my life! I have no doubt that as my blog progresses you will get to know Vienna (named for the city of music) and Ellone (pronounced Ell-oh-nay and from the video game Final Fantasy VII) very well.
Vienna, my eldest, has been going through some rough (becoming a teen-ager....13) adjustments and while I love her dearly, she has made some particularly bone-headed choices as of late. As part of my job, Steph and I assigned consequences for her most recent "less than stellar" choice that included grounding her from social activities for a while. She came to Steph and I to ask to be allowed to go to something with a few of her friends. she asked and then said, "I will do anything if you let me go." She ran through a battery of things she was willing to do (laundry, litter box, shoveling, dishes, garbage, etc..) but all of them fell in the "chore" category and we didn't feel they measured up to the severity of the crime. I looked at Steph and said, what can she offer that would be acceptable. Steph, apparently frazzled from the amount of whining our children had recently displayed said, " I would love it if she would stop whining for a while...that would be worth it." Vienna looked confused, but said, "I can do that!"
I thought for a minute....and said, "No, that is not enough.... It isn't enough for just to not have you whine. I need you to not give me the teenager attitude every time I ask you to do something. We don't ask you to do a lot, but when we do, we get the whining followed by the eye-rolling and dismissive FINE! What I want is for you to cheerfully accept that these are things you need to do to keep your parents happy and that this life will go by much better if you learn to cheerfully accept." I know that I was far more eloquent during the actual conversation, but that was the general idea. Ever since then, whenever either of my daughters start to whine and such, all we have to do is quietly say, "Cheerful Acceptance" and the behavior usually stops. It has even gotten to the point that recently, when Vi-vi starts to whine about something she follows it up with, "I know, I know...Cheerful Acceptance." And then she goes and does it.
Thus was born the Cheerful Acceptance idea. As I continue to think about Cheerful Acceptance, I see it as being a very powerful concept.
According to dictionary.com, one of the definitions of Cheerful is hearty or ungrudgingly. Additionally, one definition of Acceptance is the act of assenting or believing.
So Cheerful Acceptance is the "act of assenting or believing heartily (meaning with the heart) or ungrudgingly (whole-hearted)."
In the case of my daughter, this referred to assenting, but it could also refer to believing. I believe that there is power in learning to Cheerfully Accept more things in our life....both good and bad.
Thank you for reading my first post....I hope you will enjoy reading and commenting on this and my future posts.
Home has been alot less "frazzled" as of late by the use of this Cheerful Acceptance. Doing what I "preach" and cheerfully accepting things that I don't want to do too has been a very worthwhile experience. It makes for a much less hectic and harried attitude, and I feel more calm and resolute about what has to be done. Alot of people I know are due for a Renaissance of change like this...it is amazing how you'll feel when you don't hear the whining anymore! (Congrats, My Love, for putting your thoughts down. Just keep at this. I think this "one" thing is really worth pursuing.)
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