There’s Always Another Way: Lessons in Radical Acceptance

Dear H+W Family,

I hope you are doing well and that you had an amazing summer! Can you believe it's fall already? Time flies!

Lately, I've been reflecting on the art of letting go and surrender.

Earlier this year, my father and I drove down the coast of northern California, to visit the old redwood forest, I found myself captivated by the fresh air, massive old-growth trees, windy roads, and the ocean crashing against giant, dramatic cliffs. We stopped at Mendocino, a charming small town only about three street blocks wide, and walked into an antique jewelry store, packed with old treasures. Sidebar: lately, I’ve been fascinated by jewelry. I like to think of it as a private, wearable universe of meanings, values, and memories where each piece can serve as a talisman, symbolizing something meaningful to you, whether it be a memory, or a quality you'd like to imbue into your life.

The shopkeeper, a kind woman in her 50s, greeted me as I walked in, and sitting right there in the corner was a very old man. He had these startling, bright blue eyes that twinkled like he knew a secret.

"That's my father," the shopkeeper told me, smiling. "He's 92 years old. And he flew here on his own from Boston!"

The old man looked at me and smiled, and there was just this electric kind of youthfulness about him. Something about him didn't seem ninety-two at all. So I smiled and asked him, "What's your secret?"

Over the years, I've asked many elderly people for their advice on aging, collecting their wisdom like pearls and holding them close. They're honestly worth more than any diamond or gold ring in that whole store!

So I'm going to share with you what he told me:

He smiled then, looked right at me, and said,

"There's always another way."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"There's never just one way in life," he said, his voice totally steady. "If something doesn't work out the way you want, well, there's always another way."

He said this simply, as if he were talking about the weather or sandwiches, as if life really were that straightforward.

His daughter looked over at us from where she was fixing some displays and laughed. "He doesn't worry about anything."

"That's because I know life will always find another way," he told us. "You know, when my wife died, I had three daughters and they all helped me. Now whenever I have a problem, all I have to do is call them. They're my greatest advisors. So you see, I never have anything to worry about. There's always another way."

My father and I left the jewelry shop not long after, stepping back out into the cool California air, but the old man's words stayed with me long after we left: There's always another way.

So many of us walk around with anxiety, needing every little detail of our lives to work out a specific way. We try to plan and control things, worried of a single misstep. And when things inevitably don't go to plan, we feel like life is the enemy. We get caught in an exhausting tug-of-war with our own circumstances, constantly worrying about what might go wrong when things don't align with our expectations.

What struck me about the old man was that he seemed to intuitively understand what ancient traditions and modern psychology teach us: that life has a momentum of its own, and fighting it only exhausts us. It’s what the philosopher Alan Watts meant when he observed, "To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float."

In evidence-based dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), this is known as radical acceptance—stopping the exhausting fight against reality—paired with the art of surrender, which is simply learning to flow with whatever is actually happening. It turns out that the peace the old man found in that corner chair isn't just a charming personality quirk; it's ancient wisdom for modern life.

So I invite you this month to find small ways to trust life, to relax and float down the waters of life, like this old man did and see what happens!

Reflections:

• How does this resistance affect your happiness and stress?

• What expectations or timelines are you forcing onto your life right now?

• Where might letting go actually open a door you haven't considered yet?

• What would change if you treated a current setback as a detour rather than a dead end?

• What would change for you if you trusted life the way this old man did?