Acceptance Opens the Way for Creativity

In a post a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Khalil Gibran verse that has meant so much to me over the years.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was
oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Gibran accepts that sorrow will carve into our being. He wastes no time reasoning or divining why. Before I go on about creativity and acceptance, I want to clarify one thing. I think Gibran is speaking about the inevitable pain -- death, physical illness, mental illness -- things we have no control over. But there are things we do have control over. We make bad choices, we say mean things, we hurt others, we indulge our addictions to the detriment of relationship and health. 

In other words, the sorrows and pain of life come inevitably and by our own choice. I think it's important to make the distinction, to understand that there are some painful matters we cause. It's essential to our mental and spiritual maturity to take responsibility in these cases.

Photo by William Marsh

So where is the creativity in acceptance? For the inevitable hurt of life, acceptance opens the door to creativity by not allowing us to wallow in anger and self-pity and denial -- those things that can either paralyze us or drive us into unthinking action. The peace of acceptance makes more possible the constructive action that arises from reflection.

More about this in my next post.




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