Radical Acceptance: The Age-Old Challenge to Accept Truth

“Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging.” –
Marsha Linehan

“Despite my many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul lead me to conclude that all is well.”
Oedipus Rex

Oedipus finally came around to radical acceptance toward the end of his life — Oedipus Rex

Radical acceptance is the act of acknowledging the truth without reservation. This sounds simple, and in theory it is, but radical acceptance can be one of the most difficult psychological hurdles we can take on.

Many of us spend our lifetimes avoiding uncomfortable truths. We build walls around sensitive areas — fears, failures, regrets. Sometimes we build these walls through the brute force of suppression, and sometimes we use obfuscation of fact and narrative finesse. Whatever the method, we hide these uncomfortable truths from ourselves.

To radically accept means to stop fighting against or running from uncomfortable realities. It means to let go of dread, bitterness, and regret. This can be a grueling process that requires a willingness to open oneself to sadness or grief, anxiety or fear. Sifting through the facts of our lives in a nonjudgmental manner can feel intense and overwhelming, but on the other side of this intensity is a deep calm and restfulness that springs from the act of making peace with oneself.

Radical acceptance in literature

On thinking about radical acceptance, it has occurred to me how often the theme of avoidance-to-acceptance has appeared in some of the classic works of world literature. There is something timeless about this pursuit, which has been explored by writers for centuries. Below, I’ll look at three classical works, each about a protagonist who spends a lifetime attempting to deny the facts of their lives before finally choosing radical acceptance.

These works, The Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamia circia 1300 BC) , Oedipus at Colonus (406 BC Greece), and Don Quixote (1605 Spain), represent three different regions, cultures, and times, and their protagonists are some of the most enduring in history.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest written stories in the world. Gilgamesh is a king of an ancient Mesopotamian city who fears he has not yet created a lasting legacy for himself, so he leaves the comfort of home in pursuit of glory. In foreign lands he demonstrates various feats of strength: wrestles and subdues the world’s strongest man, slays a giant, conquers a supernatural bull, and traverses a formidable mountain range.

Along the way, he becomes terrified of death and seeks out a man rumored to have found the secret of immortality. This man disappoints him, telling him that immortality is impossible, but youthfulness can be acquired from an aquatic plant. Gilgamesh searches for and finds this plant, but a snake snatches it away from him before he is able to harness its power.

Here, Gilgamesh accepts his fate.

“Only the gods live forever . . . As for mankind, numbered are their days; Whatever they achieve is but the wind!”

Gilgamesh has realized and accepted that he had been seeking the impossible. He returns to his kingdom, and lives out his life as a benevolent king.

Oedipus Rex

The story of Oedipus stretches over the plays Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles. In Rex, Oedipus seeks to reveal the unknown killer of the former king of his native city of Thebes. During his search, an oracle tells him his destiny is to kill his father and marry his mother. He thinks he can evade this fate, until it is revealed to him that he killed the former king, his father, and married his bereaved mother. She, on this discovery, hangs herself. Oedipus becomes stricken with grief and pokes out his eyes so that he does not have to bare witness to the misery he has caused.

When we meet him again in Colonus, Oedipus is a wandering beggar, exiled from his home, overwhelmed by grief and suffering. But when his own death is near, Oedipus radically accepts his circumstances, concluding:

Despite my many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul lead me to conclude that all is well.

He is not giving moral approval to his prior actions or current circumstances. Rather, he is acknowledging the events of the past, and making the conscious decision to accept them as part of his life story. From here, he is able to shed the burden he had been carrying and live out his life in relative peace in the small village of Colonus.

Don Quixote

Don Quixote is a literary creation of a much different time and place. A product of Renaissance playwright Cervantes, Don Quixote is a study of the impacts that popular culture can have on a person’s psyche.

Alonso Quixano is a Spanish farmer of an advanced age with a passion for ‘books of chivalry’ – adventure stories involving knights, distressed princesses, and evildoers. He reads so many of these books that “his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind,” at which point he renames himself Don Quixote and sets out on a series of misadventures. In the Spanish countryside, Don Quixote mistakes windmills for giants, friars for evil enchanters, and so forth. Friends and neighbors do their best to corral him home and accept that he is not a knight but a regular peasant, but Don Quixote scoffs and embarks again at the first opportunity.

But in his final moments, as he laid on his death bed, he accepts his true self:

My judgment is restored, free and clear of the dark shadows of ignorance imposed on it by my grievous and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry . . . I feel, Niece, that I am about to die; I should like to do so in a manner that would make it clear that my life was not so wicked that i left behind a reputation for being a madman, for although I have been one, I should not like to confirm this truth in my death. (p. 935)

He dies moments later. This radical acceptance after so many years of delusion allowed him to find peace with himself, even as those around him lamented the loss of the chaotic Quixote they had come to appreciate.

And Sisyphus…

Finally, there is Sisyphus, the ancient Greek ne’er do well condemned to an eternity of meaningless labor by the Gods. Albert Camus surmises that the futility of his labor — rolling a bolder up a hill, watching it roll back down, and repeat — is only torturous for Sisyphus if he yearns for something greater.

But if Sisyphus accepts his fate, and if happiness can be achieved without unrealized hope, then, Camus says, “we must imagine Sisyphus happy.” This is the essence of radical acceptance.

The journey toward radical acceptance is universal

Throughout time and around the world, the theme of radical acceptance emerges. So many of our most famous literary characters struggle to accept the realities of their lives and the limitations of man. In each of the above examples, the character’s story end with the radical acceptance of his true self and circumstance. In each case, the author shows us that wherever the character may go, the primary conflict of his life is internal. When each character finally comes to terms with this, he finds peace.

The ubiquity of the theme of radical acceptance in world literature, as well as the endurance of these characters in popular conscious, suggest the timelessness of this theme and the primal nature of the struggle towards radical acceptance faces us all.