Does accepting reality mean giving up on changing it?
You can move somewhere you wanted to live and still find yourself lonely there.
The work interests you. You like the neighbourhood. But most evenings, you go home without having spoken to anyone beyond the people you work with. When an old friend asks how the move is going, you mention the good parts and leave the evenings out.
Admitting the loneliness may feel like saying you made a mistake. Yet both things can be true: you wanted this life, and part of it is difficult. Accepting that fuller account gives you more to work with. It does not decide that you must leave or that nothing can improve.
A Spark from Questions Asked
Accepting your life means staying in touch with reality and avoiding denial. A person in touch with reality is better positioned to change his fortunes, and to maintain his integrity.
In “The song of my life”, Innocent likens a changing life to music made from high and low notes. He asks whether we will live it through both. Accepting the life, he explains, includes staying in touch with reality rather than yielding to every pressure it brings.
The image makes room for a difficulty without giving it the whole song. Loneliness can belong to your present life alongside interesting work and a place you enjoy. Acknowledging it does not cancel those things. Nor do those things make the loneliness imaginary or ungrateful.
There is a practical cost to leaving it out. If everyone hears that you are happily settled, they have little reason to ask whether you would like company. You may decline a visit because it would reveal how empty the weekend looks. Keeping the account cheerful begins to affect choices that could have made life less lonely.
You might also promise yourself that everything will improve once work becomes quieter. Perhaps it will. But if several months have passed, it helps to notice that the hoped-for change has not yet happened. You need to make decisions about the evenings you have, not only the ones you expect eventually to arrive.
Honesty allows several responses. You could invite a colleague for a meal, tell your old friend that you miss them or look for a regular activity you would enjoy sharing. You could also decide, after giving the place time, that you want to live nearer the people you know. Accepting the situation leaves these choices open; denying it gives you little reason to consider them.
The same honesty matters when things go well. Enjoying the work is part of the account too. If one lonely evening becomes proof that the entire move failed, another part of reality has disappeared. You do not need one verdict that makes the whole experience either a triumph or a mistake.
The next conversation can contain what the earlier one left out. You can say that you like living there and miss having someone to spend an ordinary Saturday with. Your friend may not have an answer. At least they can respond to the life you are actually living, and you can accept their company without first pretending you do not need it.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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