A Spark by Innocent Mwatsikesimbe from Questions Asked, chapter 12

Acceptance has a bad reputation. It sounds like surrender — like agreeing to whatever life decides to do with you. Innocent means something close to the opposite: what gets accepted is reality, not defeat. Accepting a life is refusing to lie to yourself about it.

He keeps the two firmly apart — accepting your life “doesn’t mean you should accede to life’s pressures.” Denial is the real capitulation, because nobody can change a fortune they won’t look at. An accurate map is where every journey out begins.

That is why being in touch with reality pays twice. Fortunes, because you can only steer from where you actually are. Integrity, because a self in contact with the truth never has to split into the life it lives and the story it tells. Loving your life through its low notes as much as its high ones starts with consenting to hear both — after all, “It is life’s variations that make living interesting.”