Radical Acceptance

Acceptance is a simple concept: to acknowledge the reality at the present. Certain things are easier to accept than others, while certain things makes accepting a process, as oppose to a decision.

Radical acceptance (Li¹ 24), is a curious concept that stood out to me. What does it mean to accept something radically? The term Radical carries a sort of negative connotation. As this word is often overused nowadays to describe things not at all radical, with the intention of painting it as negative. The definition of radical (or radically) is neutral. It describes “something fundamental, thorough, or going to the very source of an issue”. To be radical is to be thorough, to consider something fundamentally. Then, to radically accept, is to thoroughly accept, to fundamentally accept, by understanding the very source of the object to accept. Radical acceptance, by itself, is not extreme. The courage it takes to radically accept something, is however, extreme.

I often consider what changes I’ve had to accept in my life thus far. However, what counts as radical acceptance? If I take an extended amount of time to accept, is that still radical acceptance? Considering the definition, I don’t think that time is not a factor that should be considered. In life, there are events that changes your life so fundamentally, so thoroughly, that it is only reasonable for it to take years to accept. I trust that when faced with these events, very few have the courage to radically accept it immediately. They might appear to accept it, but still goes through the stages of denial, rejection, and attempt to twist reality, rather than acknowledging it, as it is, at the present.

To acknowledge the present as it is, is harder said than done. I have always had trouble living the present. I often find myself either reconsidering what I could have or should have done in the past, or making Plan A, B, C, D for the future. The present is something that happens instantaneously, and once that instananeous moment happens, it becomes the past. However, I feel that I have full control over the future that exist in Plan A, B, C, and D, at least on paper. That is perhaps why I like making plans. It however, also reveals something I do not wish to acknowledge: I have no ability to admit that the present is fine. I cannot admit that what I have right now, where I am right now, who I am with right now, gives me no reason to fear, no cause to worry. I don’t know what it will take for me to feel satisfied and safe. I can’t seem to radically accept the present.

Footnotes

1. Li, Yiyun. Things in Nature Merely Grow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025. ↩