31 Days of Journaling Prompts: Acceptance

Day 12: Acceptance

Who doesn’t want to be accepted? We all do! We all want people to love us without changing who we are, what we do, what we believe in and so on.

When I re-entered the dating world 4 years ago after my divorce, I did a lot of online dating. There was a common theme that stood out to me in the profiles that I read. It was acceptance. It seemed a bit silly to me when I would read something like, “I want to find someone to accept me for who I am,” because I was thinking that it was pretty obvious that everyone wants that. The problem for me at the time was that I didn’t see all the hurt that these guys had experienced in their past relationships that caused them to include something that important to them in their profile.

Because of the upcoming Presidential election in the US, right now seems to be a bad time when it comes to accepting other’s beliefs. People tend to push their thoughts on everything related to politics and they think that what they believe is right. I have no problem with this until someone judges another’s beliefs as wrong because the belief isn’t the same. I try my best to keep out of discussions of politics and religion for this very reason. I read yesterday that there is a black celebrity endorsing Mitt Romney and getting all sorts of negative comments (even death threats). I am shocked that she has received so much slack from so many people for her political beliefs. Of course, there’s been all sorts of comments about how if she was a white woman no one would care. But who cares who she is? Can’t we just accept that she’s a human living in a free country and has the right to her own opinion? Isn’t that the point of basic human rights?

If we all agreed all the time, I think it would be pretty boring. Being different from one another is what makes the world interesting. To accept someone doesn’t mean that you have to also agree with what they do. Just love them. Just accept them.

Can you accept someone without agreeing with their beliefs? Have you been criticized for not having the same beliefs as someone else?

“Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they’re alive and human.” – Albert Ellis

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3 thoughts on “31 Days of Journaling Prompts: Acceptance”

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I most definitely accept and love someone with different believes than mine.One of my dearest friends since high school is an atheist.I am a Christian.We both love each other dearly even though our beliefs on God are at polar opposites.We have many others alike then we have that are different.And,honestly,I think most people with opposing views would find the amount of things they have in common to be far greater that their few differences if they only took the time to get to know each other and not get stuck on political,religious, or other beliefs.

It’s crazy how people can get so fired up about politics and religion to the point of anger towards friends and family. To me getting so angry over differences of opinion is a waste of time in the grand scheme of life and all the many trials people face out there. Why waste time being angry if someone doesn’t share your same views when there are more important things out there like cancer, people dying every day, poverty, and all other kinds of suffering. I do have a best friend who has no belief in God and has total opposite political views also. I didn’t know this when we met, as we have so much in common that I assumed we shared a similar belief system too. I was very wrong about that, but it doesn’t affect our friendship because we don’t focus on our differences.