I Accept You (Just as You Are)

Acceptance is an interesting thing, isn't it?  I hear a lot of people claim that they accept other people, but I also hear a lot of conditions on that acceptance.  "I really like her, but if only she didn't talk so much."  "You can be a part of our group, as long as your religious beliefs coincide with ours."  Partners try to put pressure on their significant others to wear different clothes or get a different hair style or to act in different ways around friends or family.  Parents constantly let their kids know (often inadvertently) that they'd be much more acceptable if they cleaned their rooms or did better in school or stopped hanging around certain someones.

Most of us would say that we're pretty accepting of others.  Most of us feel that we're pretty tolerant and understanding of differences, and that we celebrate diversity, yet our words and actions often contradict these claims.  Personally, I feel that I'm a pretty accepting person, but being so takes a lot of attention and effort:  I'm often ready to write someone off because of a particular trait, and I have to remind myself that I'm not on this planet to judge others and reject them.  Rather, I'm here to live and let live and not try to make other people live their lives in the ways that I think they should.  Once I start trying to change other people--or try to convince them that they should change to please me--I'm doing something that really is quite unacceptable.

And I've done it much more than I'd like to admit over the course of my life.  To give myself credit, though, I have changed this tendency, though again, it does take effort.

You are as you are, and that's something to celebrate, not criticize.  You may make mistakes (we all do) and you may hurt other people (we all do) and you may be immature (we all are in some ways) and possibly even arrogant (ditto), but I really need to accept you for exactly what you are--because not accepting you won't change anything.

And here's the kicker:  the fact that I accept you exactly as you are does not mean that I have to let you be a part of my life.  If the truth of who you are is truly negative and/or harmful, then I would be making a huge mistake by letting you into my life.  If your negativity is too strong, letting you into my life could bring me down significantly.  Doing so could raise my stress level, cause me undue tension, worry me constantly, or even put me in danger.  If you're the kind of person who is going to manipulate me, I accept that--but I'm not going to allow you to manipulate me.  If you're the kind of person who's going to steal from me, same thing.  You are who you are and it's not up to me to change you if you choose to be this way, but I don't want you in my life.  Are you often drunk?  Well, sorry--I choose to live a life that doesn't include alcohol abuse, and your life doesn't fit very well into that plan.

One of the obvious problems of allowing someone into your life exactly as they are is the horrible effect they can have on your life if you do so.  We all know (or at least know of) women who refuse to accept the fact that their partner is abusive.  We know of people who marry alcoholics because they refuse to accept that this person they love may have such a destructive trait.  They deny that the behaviors they see are real, and thus end up paying a very high price for that denial--and many children pay that price, too.

So acceptance is extremely positive in at least two ways:  when we accept someone for being exactly who they are and don't try to change them; and when we accept the fact that someone isn't exactly the best person to have in our lives and we make the decision not to have them as such as long as the negative behaviors continue.  Acceptance becomes less positive when we accept someone just as they are, even when the person they are is someone who's bound to hurt us--in that case, the "acceptance" seems more like denial, and it truly can cause harm.

So let's be careful how we define the term, and let's be careful to whom we extend our acceptance.  Remember, it's important to accept the fact that a person is addicted to drugs, but it's not healthy to accept that person "just as they are."  On the other hand, if their behavior or way of being doesn't harm others, then our acceptance may be one of the best things we can share with them as they realize that someone does, indeed, love them just as they are.