> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://letters.michaelmaddaus.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A Quote and a Thought
- URL: https://letters.michaelmaddaus.com/blog/a-quote-2/
- Published: 2024-09-23T20:59:46.000Z
- Updated: 2024-09-23T20:59:46.000Z
- Author: Michael Maddaus
- Tags: Newsletter, Quotes

In my last post [Things I Would Have Liked to Have Known When I Was Younger](https://letters.michaelmaddaus.com/blog/things-i-would-have-liked-to-have-known-when-i-was-younger/), I wrote about impermanence, and wouldn't you know it, today's quote from the Waking Up app was this one by Thich Nhat Hanh:

"It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not." 

Succinct and true.

Also, I wanted to share a small story that highlights the issue of acceptance well.

On a sunny cold March Sunday morning 3 of my six kids drove me to Hazelden for what would turn out to be a 3 month incarceration for prescription narcotic addiction. 

Overnight I went from full professor, endowed chair, program director, blah blah blah - to just another miserable addict in rehab. 

I was, to put it mildly, not happy to be there. In fact, I learned that I was voted "least likely to succeed" by my fellow inmates shortly after I arrived. Not good for a rehab joint. I was voted later to be "most improved," which offered me little in the way of solace given my mental starting gate. 

I will never forget sitting with my counselor in his office on the couch on day 2, slumped down, angry, miserable, and depressed. He looked at me and said: "acceptance will set you free."

My first thought was fuck you. But later in my dorm room that I shared with 2 other comrades, I reflected on it and decided to give up the battle. I accepted the reality of the situation, and I finally quit fighting and resisting. I did what they told me to do.

Did that make everything hunky-dory? Not even close. The three months there were on so many levels a living hell. However, accepting my new reality prevented me from making a bad situation much worse with my resentment and anger. 

He was right. Acceptance does set you free from the clenched fist of mental resistance that always makes a tough thing worse. It is like getting a second chance to line up at the starting gate so you can have another go at things, but with a more open mind and, if you really have your mental shit together, curiosity and a chance to learn.