Accepting yourself

[LonelySutton]

So I am now 44... ikes... and I have about 40 years left of life realistically. Since I was about 18 I have been dieting. I suspect I just naturally tend to want more food than my body burns. About every three years I would lose some and gain it back. I am a complete expert on dieting. A few years ago I did a diet plan that involved very low calories and medical monitoring and I did lose weight. But, I couldn't keep it off. I tried for two years. And one more slowly gaining.

Finally I just had a thought... is it time to just accept the weight my body wants to be? Though it isn't preferred...

Just thinking about that...putting it in my head... wow... I immediately felt this overwelmning joy. It isn't the "food" that I miss, it is the life that I put off to keep dieting / low calories. The idea of going out to eat with friends (if I get any) and having what I want; cooking for myself and making what I want, even buying in bulk so that I could have stuff on hand... most of this stuff has been "put off" over the years to keep from eating.

But also, it was the idea of finally accepting myself... completely, just made me so happy. I don't know... I have mostly felt unable to achive things the last few years... I feel like my day is one long heavy series of things to do... but when I took THIS thing off it... it was like instantly I felt so much energy / power. It was almost like I reset myself back to the time I was a teenager. Because this is how I felt when I was younger... like of course I could achieve anything.

So it isn't just so much about accepting myself but I was thinking how I had this thing I was failing at and instead of accepting that and moving on with my life... I literally fought it for years and kept it in my life ... wasting my time and energy.

If your still trying to change something that will never change... as Elsa says, let it go. Your life is waiting.

 

[Mr Seal The Albatros]

Very inspirational post. I remember trying to do the same with my Aspergers considering it was drawing people away from me. In time, I decided to finally accept it and in time, find out how to control it a bit easier. I felt much happier than I used to.

 

[Ioann]

Absolutely. It need not mean that we should not strive for things we can achieve, but some many people want things they cannot have, or to be something they cannot be. I tried for so long to tell myself that I wasn't really gay. It was a phase I was going through, or actually I was bisexual. Coming to accept that (I) I am gay and (ii) it really doesn't matter, was a great liberation. It did take a long time though.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Eh....I have always had a problem with the idea of accepting something like this. I feel that if I don't keep trying to swim upstream, then I could see myself giving up completely and accepting a life that I really wouldn't like. If I just stopped trying at everything today and adopted an attitude of acceptance, then all I see in my future is living in a crappy apartment, driving a beat-up old economy car if I am driving at all, stuck in a dead-end, low-paying job, not being even remotely interesting or good at anything, having no stories or memories, watching my health start to fail, at best with someone I don't really want but have gotten complacent with but almost surely forever single, and doing nothing else with my life but work, play video games, and probably drink every day. And that would be the best case scenario. I really don't want that, I dream of so much more, I know it could be so much better than that.

I didn't mean to attack you, Sutton, I think you're all right by me. But I fiercely oppose the idea of accepting, because it's just so bleak. I need to know there's hope, I need to know I have potential. It's what keeps me going.

 

[Solivagant]

^ To me there is a difference between acceptance and complacence.

 

[Ymir]

^ To me there is a difference between acceptance and complacence.

Don't even know what Ska posted but, yeah. No one's going to get everything out of life and there's some stuff we need to let go so we can enjoy our lives. Accepting one thing or two every now and then didn't kill anybody.

 

[TheSkaFish]

^ To me there is a difference between acceptance and complacence.

To me they are one and the same. The connotations might be different but it's the same result. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I just don't see how they are different.

 

[Tiina63]

Eh....I have always had a problem with the idea of accepting something like this. I feel that if I don't keep trying to swim upstream, then I could see myself giving up completely and accepting a life that I really wouldn't like. If I just stopped trying at everything today and adopted an attitude of acceptance, then all I see in my future is living in a crappy apartment, driving a beat-up old economy car if I am driving at all, stuck in a dead-end, low-paying job, not being even remotely interesting or good at anything, having no stories or memories, watching my health start to fail, at best with someone I don't really want but have gotten complacent with but almost surely forever single, and doing nothing else with my life but work, play video games, and probably drink every day. And that would be the best case scenario. I really don't want that, I dream of so much more, I know it could be so much better than that.

I didn't mean to attack you, Sutton, I think you're all right by me. But I fiercely oppose the idea of accepting, because it's just so bleak. I need to know there's hope, I need to know I have potential. It's what keeps me going.

I think it is important to make a distinction between accepting some things and trying to change other things. I agree with Lonely Sutton that accepting his weight is good-I carry some extra weight too and have come to accept that I would prefer to eat at least some of things I enjoy and stay as I am rather than live on lettuce leaves for the rest of my life to be skinny.
However, I think that it is good to strive to change things in our life we are very unhappy about, such as looking for a relationship/a better job/a better place to live etc.

 

[Rainbows]

You cannot become better if you haven't even started to improve yourself.

I want to become a writer - but for that I have to go to college and do stuff I don't want to.
It's the road to happiness and peace. If you only focus on the end, you're never going to get anywhere.
It's not because someone has a low-paying job or doesn't have a fancy car, that it means they failed in life. As long as you're happy and at peace with yourself.. then it's okay.

If you're convinced those things make you a failure - ... I don't know. Stop thinking in black & white, the world is more complicated than those two colors.
And it's all on you, really. No one is telling you to start drinking or play video games. I don't know.. get a low paying job but write a novel on the side? Learn a foreign language and become a translator on the side? Start drawing and become an artist? Sing? Learn to dance? Learn to knit? Blaming anything and anyone else but you isn't going to get you anywhere.

It's all up to you.
Ball is in your camp.

(That was directed at Ska, Sorry Sutton. I hope you feel better soon.)

 

[LonelySutton]

However, I think that it is good to strive to change things in our life we are very unhappy about, such as looking for a relationship/a better job/a better place to live etc.

Yes, with me I have given legitimate tries to lose weight and have come to conclude that it can't be changed. I don't regret the times I lost weight in that each one lead me to the inescapable truth.... I cannot ... over come this. Now, if you haven't really made the effort to try to do whatever you need to do in life... then you shouldn't accept something.. you should get to change it. And even within accepting it I am sure I will make little adjustments but...

Here is the question that kind of got me... if tomorrow someone told you that you had 6 months to live - would you regret the time you spent trying to change something? For me, that is a yes.

 

[Tealeaf]

As far as I'm concerned, whatever size you're at if you're eating more home-cooked meat, veggies, fruits, and legumes than Twinkies, pizza, and McDonald's is fine. People worry so much about size that they don't wind up worrying about nutrition, and while obesity is harped on I never see anyone worrying about people who don't eat much suffering from malnutrition. A superficial society, indeed.

 

[DariusArgent]

Here is the question that kind of got me... if tomorrow someone told you that you had 6 months to live - would you regret the time you spent trying to change something? For me, that is a yes.

I wouldn't. If I have 6 months to live I will continue to try and change something and try out my best during those 6 months. Better die trying to live your life to the fullest than spend the rest of your remaining days regretting for the past.

 

[LonelySutton]

So yesterday I met someone to exchange something. She drove up behind me in this big new BMW SUV. I had this twinge of... I want that. But as I drove home I remembered.

2009 I bought a used BMW. I was pretty and I loved it, but a few things happened. First, I kept getting pulled over by the police. I guess they think if you have money you will just pay the ticket. Then every time I would have anything go wrong with it... it would be expensive.

But mostly I realized... I am just not a BMW person. I get out of the BMW in jeans and sneakers where most BMW people come out perfectly quaffed. It says something about how upwardly mobile you are / winner you are to be in that car... (seriously you would not believe it) but, the truth is, I am not a winner. I am a "roll out of bed on the weekends" shut in who, to whatever extent I am upwardly mobile I don't like to brag about it.

I am not a BMW person... accepted. I ended up buying a Ford Fiesta. A lot of people raise an eye brow at that, but it is a cute car that works and maybe suits me. Frugal, cute, a little immature.

 

[SofiasMami]

Here is the question that kind of got me... if tomorrow someone told you that you had 6 months to live - would you regret the time you spent trying to change something? For me, that is a yes.

I agree with that and that's not even a theoretical question. We are all going to be faced with our own mortality sooner or later. For most of us, there will be a moment where we know death is knocking at our door. I decided I didn't want to spend that moment regretting having devoted hours, days, years of my life looking in vain for a partner. So I'm devoting my time to other things.
Seems like you've done the same with accepting yourself the way you are.

-Teresa