Acceptance – assent or dissent?

28 May Acceptance – assent or dissent?

Assent or dissent?

Acceptance, assent or dissent? Acceptance happens when you agree with a person, situation or idea, that it is right in your mind also. Dissent is not accepting an opinion or belief because you have a differing point of view about how things could, should or can be. You see things differently.

Acceptance by default

There are many times throughout your lives when you accepted things – people, situations, concepts – because of what you were taught, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously by the role models in your life. While, hopefully, most of what you were taught was for the benefit of yourself and the world at large, it is also essential to understand that not all actions have pure intentions.

When you were young, you trusted the role models in your life and that what they are saying and, or, doing, was OK, or right. Parents and other role models can only do the best they can due to what they were taught themselves. Life was different in the generation before yours and changed again in every age before that. Only a few generations ago it was vastly different. It is essential to understand this rather than lay blame and cause dissension unnecessarily.

Blame game

Laying blame is not beneficial unless you look at strategies and processes and how things can be improved. This is why being a life-long learner is the best thing you can be, and do, not only for yourself but for your children and future generations.

When you look at what went wrong rather than who was wrong, you see things differently. You understand that processes and procedures need to be implemented and when. Every day you could learn more about yourself if you were open to it.

Often these processes and procedures do involve people, but it’s not always the people who were at fault, it’s often the process. For example, whether a child at preschool is bullying another or an adult in the workplace is, it is the process of how to deal with the situation and when it is appropriate to intervene, and how, opposed to ignoring the situation which then reinforces the bullying culture that may already exist in that child care centre or workplace.

Everyone is like you, not

We all tend to grow up thinking that everybody has experiences that are the same as yours – whatever that is. The reality is we are all unique, and even if we grew up in the same family, there are still many differences between us. There is nobody in this world who is like you. You are unique. You are special. You have a different outlook to everybody else because you have different thoughts, friends, experiences and have been in situations that others haven’t. You will find people who have similar beliefs, some of the same friends and who have had similar experiences to you, but nobody has had everything the same as you.

We are all the same in so many other ways, though. We have so much in common, and the world seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and we are so connected compared to previous generations. Technology has made us more connected to each other while also causing a massive disconnection between us too.

We’re all the same, but different

Wouldn’t it be great to be taught that differences are unique and what to look for in people, such as positive character traits, and discover that you can learn more about certain things from them opposed to ostracising someone because they are different? Can you imagine this being taught in child care centres? Then would you see it more in the workforce? Can you see how that attitude of recognising our gifts, and our limitations, and seeing others who are different as someone we can learn from as a positive?

The downside to acceptance

I don’t know that I can see much of a disadvantage to acceptance. When going through challenging times in your life, it requires honesty and accepting the truth of the situation that you find yourself in. Forget blame. Do not blame others, do not blame yourself. When you do that it takes away precious time and energy to move forward and take the necessary action to overcome your situation. Negative thoughts do not help you move forward unless they inspire you to do something about it. Whatever your thoughts or actions remember to treat yourself and others with kindness always – be kind, be kind, be kind.

Here’s some short stories about acceptance – I suspect one of the stories will resonate with you – have a great week!