Our lives are full of demands and requests. They can come from anywhere: home or work, from others and from within our own minds.
But no matter where they originate, the critical point is how we choose to respond to them. Because how we choose to respond has a profound impact on how we are treated by others, and most importantly on our own self-respect.
So when faced with a demand or request, you can choose ACCEPT it or to ACQUIESCE to it.
To ACQUIESCE means to give in to a demand or request, and subsequently to something or someone.
By allowing yourself to acquiesce you effectively merge – without challenge or evaluation – into someone else’s context. As such, you run the risk of ceding your will, initiative or control. A further risk is that you might eventually experience your will – or sense of self – becoming inexorably eroded from repeatedly compromising your value system or principles.
To ACCEPT is to make a proactive choice to adapt based on your own considered evaluation and judgement.
The key to doing this effectively is making the effort of will to pause while the request is sent to your mental think-tank for evaluation and consideration. This gives you the freedom to either deliberately accept the option as consistent or consonant with your value system, or consciously reject it because it isn’t. Whichever you choose, exercising your will in this responsible manner – guided by your thinking, not your feelings – will give you positive control over whatever choices you are presented with in life.
The Bottom Line:
Free will notwithstanding, circumstances are not always ideal, so at times the choice between acceptance or acquiescing may seem to be determined by the nature of a particular circumstance. Such is life. But as long as the choices you ACCEPT are in the main deliberate ones for which you confidently have a reasonable rationale, you’ll stay aligned with your values while exercising your potential and freedom of will, which is always a good thing.