Resignation is a daily suicide”, wrote Balzac. And he wasn’t wrong. When life hits us hard and problems pile up, we may think that resignation is the only alternative. We believe we have no choice but to grit our teeth and resign ourselves to bad luck.
But resignation does not alleviate suffering, rather it perpetuates it by immersing ourselves in a pessimistic outlook. In fact, a study conducted at the University of Manitoba found that people who respond resignedly to a cancer diagnosis have a higher risk of suffering long-term psychological disorders.
What is resignation? The psychological meaning
Resigning is giving up changing things, being content with what happens, even if it hurts us. It is a surrender in the face of obstacles, not because they are insurmountable but because pessimism or a nervous breakdown prevail . Therefore, it implies a passive attitude towards the facts.
The concept of resignation does not imply an adaptive response to reality, but rather submission to a reality that surpasses us. By resigning ourselves we run the risk of taking on the role of victim or starting to feel sorry for ourselves, telling ourselves that there is nothing we can do to change the situation we are in.
Thinking that “this is what happened to us and we can do nothing to change it”, we get trapped, not moving in the direction we want, but orbiting around bad luck.
3 differences between resignation and acceptance that we should all know
- Resignation generates impotence, acceptance leads to serenity
The emotional states that generate resignation and acceptance are very different. When we give up, we usually feel defeated. Giving up, we feel we are unable to bring about the necessary change. This creates a feeling of failure and helplessness that can even lead to depression.
Instead, when we practice acceptance, a state of calm and serenity is generated. Acceptance helps us focus on the things we can control to change what we can, so we feel confident about ourselves.
- Resignation arises from yielding, acceptance from reflection
Resignation comes from giving up, from the feeling of not being able to do anything to change what happens to us because every effort will be useless. It is often the result of a pessimistic or defeatist attitude towards life, it is thinking that ” this is what happened to me and I can’t do anything to change it” . In fact, resignation often arises from a nervous breakdown.
Instead, acceptance is usually the result of a deeper analysis of the circumstances. It implies acknowledging that things are not going as we would like and accepting reality, but with a resilient attitude. We accept what we don’t like because we know it’s the first step towards changing our situation in some way.
- Resignation condemns us to suffering, acceptance helps us heal wounds
Resignation is usually the final blow to motivation, which condemns us to immobility and passively suffer what happens. Originating from a feeling of helplessness, it usually doesn’t involve a deep analysis of the causes, thus preventing us from learning from our mistakes. In fact, resignation keeps us bogged down in the problem, suffering without finding a way out, condemning us to a sort of continuous samsara .
Acceptance, on the contrary, allows us to take a psychological distance to see things in perspective. It is a conscious process where we immerse ourselves in the situation and understand it better. This allows us to understand our role, discover our mistakes and learn from them. Therefore, acceptance is essential to piece together and recover.
The transition from resignation to acceptance
Understanding the differences between resignation and acceptance will allow us to choose how to react to life’s problems. Acceptance involves seeing things as they are and also as they are not. Resignation, on the other hand, involves deciding that things are the way they are and cannot be changed.
We practice acceptance when we say, “It’s raining today, I’ll take an umbrella .” We resign ourselves when we say: “It’s raining today, the day will be a disaster”. While with acceptance we assume a pragmatic, neutral and non-judgmental attitude, with resignation we assume a negative attitude that adds to our problems.
The problem is that we don’t realize it, so we keep piling resignation upon resignation, until it reaches the point where the weight prevents us from moving forward. The first step is to realize this and understand that we need more acceptance and less resignation.
A study conducted at the University of Milan found that when problems become chronic, an inflection point is produced in which we choose to resign ourselves and suffer in silence or embark on the path of acceptance and resilience.
When we choose radical acceptance , we see reality more objectively. We analyze the problems and decide how to act. We are aware of adversity and the harm it brings us, but instead of just passively suffering, we ask ourselves how to limit its influence.
When we resign ourselves we only see the negative side of the situation and assume that what happens to us is something immutable, which condemns us to continue to suffer. To get out of resignation we need to stop judging the things that happen to us by classifying them in terms of “good” or “bad”. We must also understand that everything changes and evolves continuously, including the situation that makes us suffer today. So the next time we hit that tipping point, we need to remember that the alternative to resignation is acceptance.
