Can’t Stomach What's Happening in the World? Try This

Key points

Once you truly accept your current reality in life, you access the power of self-directed change.

People unable to accept their current situation tend to practice “experiential avoidance.”

Parents who accepted uncertainty during lockdown tended to feel less psychological distress.

Acceptance is often the first step toward relationships and achievement.

Many people today find it virtually impossible to accept the current political and economic state of the world—whether it’s the increasing economic disparities between haves and have nots (in 2018, the top 0.1 percent earned 196 times per year what the bottom 90 percent earned), our worsening global environment, our plummeting civility accompanying our new screen-fixated habits or our growing political polarization .

Les