I am wired to look for the silver lining that I'm just always like, okay, well, how can this be for me? And how can I learn? And my partner is very much accepting, just like it is. It just is. And sometimes it just is. And he had been talking about that for as long as we had been dating. And I was just sort of like, well, we're going to agree to disagree. And reading that book was really helpful. I wouldn't say that I'm all the way there, but I'm so much more accepting of especially people, of people that in the past, I would think, well, this is toxic energy or this is, you know, this person, I'm talking about family members, like this person's crazy or that I'm just sort of like, it is what it is. And when I try and fight back against that, I only make my life more uncomfortable. Like it's that Byron Katie quote, defense is the first act of war. That when I try and like defend what I think should be true, because like, I'm not upset that you're acting this way. I'm upset because I think you shouldn't be acting this way. So if I can just sort of accept that that is what it is and then go about my existence with or without you in my life based on how you are behaving, that has been huge for me.

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And

so I think acceptance has kind of a really nasty connotation. Like there's a passivity in it and a weakness. Oh,

I think it requires so much strength.

And not only does it demand an incredible amount of strength and fortitude, but it's also the first step doing anything about it. Like you can't change something that you deny is not the way that you want it to be. You accepting reality on reality's terms is the first step. This is, I think, politically a huge mistake that people make, right? They don't want something to be true about human nature, about other people, about the world, about public opinion. So they just think if we just say things enough times, you know, we can change the fact that a good percentage of the population or we can wish away the fact that a good percentage of population does not agree with us on this. Versus, hey, this is morally correct, our position, but for whatever reason, and actually we need to understand what that reason is, a large percentage of the population does not agree. The law does not agree. And so how do we change that, right? So the acceptance, like in addiction or recovery, acceptance is the first step in admission and acceptance, is the first step in trying to chart any kind of new or better future. And your denial is not only not true, but it's harming the thing that you purport to believe in.