The Great Acting Blog: “Just Accept What Happens”

The Great Acting Blog: “Just Accept What Happens”

“Remember that it is not he who reviles you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. Therefore, try not to be carried away by the appearance. For if you gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself.” – Epictetus

How we respond to the world, how we respond to what happens to us, is a choice.

Whenever something happens which we weren’t expecting, or whenever we don’t get the result we hoped for, we can either use all of our will to resist these events, or we can choose to accept them. Resisting will drain our energy and morale, and cause us to lose focus, it creates another barrier between us and our goals. However, choosing to accept what happens to us means that we will be going with the natural flow of life, and so we’ll function happily and more effectively, we’ll avoid creating unnecessary obstacles for ourselves.

The trick is to neither judge something as good nor bad, but simply accept it for what it is, and, ideally, try to learn from it.

You muffed an audition speech? A colleague slighted you? Didn’t get the role? Your internet connection went down? Accept it, move on.

Acceptance is about taking a moment to mentally put whatever has happened to one side, and then continuing with your work.

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