Acceptance is the Key

All summer long, I wanted to see Monsters University but not enough of my friends wanted to go, so it got put on the to-do-later list. Last night, I finally got to see it with a few friends for free on campus.

To say I loved the movie is quite an understatement. It is by far one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I was laughing from beginning to end... literally. You know a movie's good when you can't stop laughing.

One of the main themes of the movie really spoke to me. Without giving too much away for those who haven't seen it, the movie is majorly about acceptance. Mike Wazowski, one of the main characters, has a hard time accepting his limited abilities. Even Sully has to accept himself.

Sometimes it's hard for us to come to terms with our limited abilities or accepting ourselves and others in general as we or they are. We want to be all and do all. But sometimes that's just not possible. Sometimes we need to calm down and just be ourselves. Sometimes we need to stop and be comfortable with who we are.

Just be...

And that's not easy. No way. Sometimes it's really hard. We may have our minds set on something too far out of reach. And we have to accept that our goal is too hard or that we are being too hard on ourselves. It doesn't mean we are a failure. It just means that we have limits. And that's because we are human. We can only do or be so much.

However, with God's help, sometimes the impossible can become possible. I constantly pray for discernment when I am making big decisions, like applying to PhD programs. By listening to God's guidance, I am able to see if my goals are part of His plans for me.

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation- some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake...Acceptance [has] taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here."
-Big Book, pg 417