About Acceptance

Tamara Levitt is the instructor on an iPhone app called "The Daily Calm," a 10-minute daily guided meditation and talk. Last week, she related a gem of a parable:

Traveler: “What kind of weather are we going to have today?”

Shepherd: “The kind of weather I like.”

Traveler: “How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?”

Shepherd: “Having found out, sir, that I cannot always get what I like, I have learned to like what I get. So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like.”
--Anthony de Mello

Seems like a vivid way to remind yourself to accept things as they are.

Sometimes artists stumble (I am sure unwittingly) upon truth; the Rolling Stones put it more obliquely:

"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes,  you just might find you get what you need

Comments

[Robert E Malchman]

I like Richard Belzer's darker take on the philosophy of the Rolling Stones: "If Mick can't get no satisfaction, what hope is there for the rest of us?" (That's probably a paraphrase rather than a direct quote.)