Midnight Mutterings | Radical acceptance

I really look forward to Saturday Morning radio on NPR. First, there’s Scott Simon on Weekend Edition. It’s always interesting to me. Simon’s laugh, like a raucous crow, tickles me each time I hear it, and his enthusiasm when when he says, ‘Now, it’s time for sports!’ I’m thrilled even though I care not one whit about sports. It’s Simon’s enthusiasm about it that makes my day every Saturday. I can put aside my own indifference about sports just to be amused by something someone else loves. Or, I can take that time as a break to do some small task while SS amuses himself and other sports lovers with this week’s news.

And I’m interested in almost every other topic Simon addresses. I love his interviews with authors discussions about their new books, as well as other topics and guests he includes.

After Scott Simon, there is Hidden Brain, hosted by Shankar Vedantam, which is always interesting to me. None more than the broadcast from May 4, 2026.

Acknowledging the difference between endorsement and acceptance makes everything better. Many of us have been in the situation of having a terrible boss, or parent, or president. Railing against the situation doesn’t help anything at all. But if we accept the situation, if we can’t change it, then we can get on with how we might make the situation tolerable for us, or work on what we might do to change OUR part of the dynamic. The situation gives us agency beyond trying or hoping for the other person to change. Dave Evans (who is interviewed on this segment of Hidden Brain), suggests that if we look at our lives like designers, we have a good shot at changing our situation or at least our attitude about it.

Take aging: In my case, I am noticing a large loss of muscle strength. I’ve always been physically strong. Not in endurance, but in short bursts of physical strength that have made it easy for me to pick up a heavy object or wiggling child and get up off the floor easily, if not particularly gracefully. I could open a jar myself instead of asking someone for help or using some special device to help me. (And all the time railing about my loss of strength.) Instead, I can gracefully accept help or even accept that the particular jar doesn’t need to be opened right now. Instead of railing loudly or in my head about my loss of muscle strength and the unfairness of my situation. Or even try to undertake a rigorous physical practice that might slow my continual muscle loss, but is unlikely to successfully regain what is already lost.

And that’s a small thing. We all have much more profound losses. People we love get sick and die, leaving us bereft, at a loss of how to cope. We may have the illness ourselves, face our own approaching death. We can be broken by it or we can try to design our approach to the inevitable. So hard to do but so much more rewarding than soaking in the unfairness of our situation.

I just listened again to the Hidden Brain podcast from the previous Saturday, and particularly appreciated Dave Evans’ offerings about Radical Acceptance and ways to reduce self-sabotage in profound and minor situations. As I’ve written before, I’m not much of a Pollyanna, but I think I can change some of my practices and ease a fair amount of frustration and grief. I think I can understand the difference between patience and passivity. I’m not working toward perfection, just easing unnecessary suffering from inevitable losses.

You can listen to the interview with Dave Evans (who also has a book on the subject) on the Hidden Brain episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radical-acceptance/id1028908750?i=1000766101762