Acceptance

“Happiness is not when you have everything you want. Its when you are content with what you have”. I was reading a book today and this quote in it, caught my attention. Took me down the memory lane. Brought back visuals of the times when I was happy, and I wondered if this quote really summed up that feeling. Being content with what you have versus being hungry for more. Some contradictions get you thinking. Are these quotes an order of situation or are they a mantra for life. I remember an incident from my school days. I was out with my friends and happened to see a roadside seller selling caps. My eyes fell upon this one specific cap, blue in color with a metal plate over it and with the words BOSS engraved on it. I fell in love with it. I bought it after a good haggle. It was my prized possession. It was precious to me. I loved to wear it “at the drop of a hat” :).
Until one day I noticed another guy wearing the exact copy of my cap. For some reason I believed what I had was unique to me and hence special. But that day it all came tumbling down. I didn’t feel like wearing my cap anymore. It took me a while to accept that somebody else has something that I thought was only mine. I remember this incident lingered for a while, before I accepted the fact. I don’t remember wearing the cap again ever, but if I had to look back in time, that would be my first implicit lesson on acceptance. Over the years, life threw plenty of opportunities where things weren’t as planned, situations were not in my control, relationships didn’t click as expected and so on. This whole notion of acceptance as a concept and its deeper meaning is something new and recent to me. But I realized that sub consciously this has been the only way I have been able to steer my way through life, acceptance. Over time I understood that “letting go” and “acceptance” becomes a large part of our mental peace but comes with a challenge. Acceptance becomes easier to practice in the larger scheme of things, but it hits you hard on the more finer aspects of day to day survival. Not getting that much awaited promotion becomes easier to handle than accepting your colleague’s irritating behavior on a day to day basis.
I am learning, to be happy… in a way the opening quote says we should be.
What is meant for me will be mine, and if its not meant for me, it never was mine.