Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More
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Acceptance

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

Fourth of July, 2026


"Happiness is almost not worth talking about because the instant you turn happiness into a goal, it isn't attainable any more. In other words, happiness isn't something you can work toward. It isn't something you can put someplace and overcome barriers to get to. It is something that happens in an instant. And the truth of the matter is that you can alter your state of happiness by simply choosing to be willing to have it be the way it is."
... 
"Transformation is simple but it's not easy. If it were easy, the whole world would be transformed by now."
... 
"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got."
... Sheryl Crow, Soak Up The Sun
This essay, Acceptance, is the one thousand nine hundred and fiftieth in this Conversations For Transformation internet series (when all this began on Sunday August 17, 2003 I promised Werner I would write two thousand essays).

It is also the companion piece to
  1. On Being Happy
  2. The Second Arrow
in that order.

It is also the fourth essay in the quadrilogy Acceptance:
  1. Fulfilled And Accepting
  2. Being Accepting, Or: Before You Can Move On You Have To Be Where You Are
  3. Unstoppable, Unavoidable, Inescapable: The Essential Acceptance
  4. Acceptance
in that order.

It is also the eighteenth in a group of eighteen written on the Fourth Of July:
  1. Anticipation: Accounting For An American Love Affair
  2. Independence Day
  3. I'd Rather Be With Me
  4. Do It For Nothing
  5. The Only Way Out Is Through
  6. Under All Circumstances
  7. Word Power
  8. When There's Nothing To Say
  9. The Possibility Of Being Independent And Free
  10. Intimacy In A Crowded Place
  11. What Goes On Internally
  12. Imprints Of Love
  13. Bookends: A Reflection On Mortality
  14. Come Back To Being
  15. Nobody Is Responsible Except You
  16. Like A Monk In A Cave
  17. Me And The Voice In My Head
  18. Acceptance
in that order.

Werner has uttered so many brilliant quotes in so many different genres that it would be a really difficult task to rank them all in order of brilliance. People ask "Do you have a quote on nothing?", "Do you have a quote on integrity?", "Do you have ...?" etc. With that said, there's a special class just for this one:


<quote>

TRANSFORMATION IS SIMPLE BUT IT'S NOT EASY. IF IT WERE EASY, THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD BE TRANSFORMED BY NOW.

<unquote>


Transformation isn't easy. That's not because it's somehow out of reach of most people. Nor is it because it requires arduous, intensive study. It's not easy because it challenges us to differentiate between who we are not, and who we really are. For the most part, we are hopelessly attached to who we are not. I love it that (I'm inspired by) happiness is a function of simply choosing to be willing to have it be the way it is ie it's a function of accepting  it the way it is. And although "choosing" it to be the way it is, isn't precisely the same as "accepting" it the way it is, deploying "accepting" in lieu of "choosing" is good enough for jazz  here. The upshot of both is: happiness is a function of simply choosing to be willing to have it be the way it is, of accepting it the way it is.

From the Cambridge International Dictionary:

<quote>
Definition
accepting verb (GERUND)
from the noun
acceptance

general agreement that something is satisfactory or right
<unquote>

Consider anything that impacts our state of happiness ie consider anything which we say (quote unquote) "makes us happy". In "the thing in itself", there's only what is. There's only what's so. There's no such thing as intrinsic happiness in anything. There's just the way it is. And when a thing is just the way it is (and when it's not the way it's not), it's perfect. And if you tell the the truth about it, you're the one who makes things perfect ie you're the one who has things be just the way they are. And you're also the one who adds opinions, commentaries, and beliefs which deem that the way things are, is not perfect.

It's a pretty safe bet that we're unhappy when we've deemed that things aren't perfect the way they are. And with the advent of transformation, things are perfect the way they are. That's why transformation is simple: things are already  perfect the way they are. And why transformation is not easy is because we covet transformation against a background of things not being perfect the way they are. There's no acceptance that things are already satisfactory and right to begin with. So we end up expending enormous amounts of work and energy making that which is already  OK, OK. That's not an easy thing to do.

Acceptance as an access to being happy, has certain, almost unmistakable Buddhist undertones. To get this in its full profundity, relinquish adding opinions, comments, and beliefs to the way things are. And it's almost certain that in any conversation about things being perfect the way they are, someone will lay down a challenge which is the same as or similar to "What about poverty? What about war? What about hunger? How can you say they are perfect the way they are?". Consider these two things: the first is when we say things are perfect the way they are, it doesn't imply they are satisfactory or right or good.

The second falls out of the first: the access to happiness is the acceptance of things being perfect the way they are (no matter what a thing is, it's perfect the way it is), and the domain of not-happiness shows up in the adding on of opinions, comments, and beliefs to the way things are without owning that it's we who add them on . Be careful not to hear that as an invalidation of opinions, comments, and beliefs. The critical distinction here is acceptance as an access to happiness, and the recognition that opinions, comments, and beliefs aren't intrinsic to anything. Rather, it's we who add them on to everything.


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