sometimes "accepting the way things are" is a defeatist attitude and other times, it's a form of absolute freedom. for example, it would be defeatist to say that people are poor, there is injustice in the world, and there's nothing that can be done about it--"that's just the way things are" although you feel passionately that change is needed. that's just a cop out--an excuse for yourself so that you're able to live with the fact that you're not lifting a finger to change the problems you see in the world. if MLK said and believed those words, the civil rights movement could have been set back a decade or even longer. however, there are also times when you HAVE to accept the way things are for your own sanity--you have to come to terms with it. for example, the end of a relationship (especially a bad one). that doesn't mean you don't miss them at times or think about the good memories but it does mean letting go. letting go does not involve frequenting locations where you know you may run into that person or checking their facebook updates long after the relationship is over. yes, i guess i should take my own advice about it but we all have to start the END somewhere. first, we end contact then we eliminate traces of those relationships. yeah yeah...some of us like to remain neutral or "on good terms," however, i really don't see how that works out. i mean, if it's a dating relationship, you broke up for a reason and if it's a friendship, you're not friends for a reason, right? how can you keep around someone you can't trust. the hardest part of "accepting the way things are" is probably being happy for them and loving them even though you don't want them back in your life. that comes after forgiveness...sometimes. besides, isn't it a bigger slap in the face when they know you're happy for them? because if you can be happy for them, you're happy in your own life and you don't need them to be miserable so that you can be happy--your happiness no longer depends on them.

a lot of my energy has gone into vengance and bitterness. i could only imagine how much better things would have turned out if i had channeled that energy into love for those people. maybe they would have come around over time or maybe they wouldn't...but at least you wouldn't have let the anger eat you up inside. and it does...

sometimes i find myself wanting them to miss me. and sometimes i find out that they really do. but why should i want that? it's far nobler for me to WANT them to move on. i mean, who doesn't want to be missed, right? but still...things happen for a reason and i think you both need to really move on in your own directions. i once said, "i think we need to go in separate directions" after someone asked me to remain friends with them. i know i said it but i really didn't mean it...at the time. i just wanted them to think that i meant it and those were my last words to them. they didn't die or anything, we just never really talked after that. but how freeing would it have been to actually mean those words when i said them? i wouldn't have wasted these past couple of years stuck on that relationship. i'm learning how to mean it now but it's hard. you just have to remember that it's better on the other side when you make it out with a few scratches instead of the paralysis you might have been facing had you stayed in that relationship any longer than you did.