...And it Was Just Right

Most of the time I don’t feel like anything is ‘just right’ in my life. Like Goldilocks, I often find things ‘too hot’ or ‘too cold’, ‘too hard’ or ‘too soft.’ It takes a lot for me to accept something as being ‘just right’. I either strive to change things to make them fit my standard of acceptability, or I reject them as being completely unacceptable. On the surface this seems reasonable, after all, had Goldilocks eaten that first bowl of porridge, she would’ve burned her tongue. Had she eaten the second, she would’ve had cold porridge and really, who wants that?

According to the Big Book;

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. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.

In my search for the ‘just right’ I often lose my serenity. I become caught up in the heat or coldness of the ‘wrong’ things. I rage, I rant, I cry, I obsess and I begin to feel that only unhealthy choices can make me feel right again. I read ‘Acceptance’ and while it brings me much comfort I have a very, very hard time with ‘I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment’. Does that mean Goldilocks should have just accepted that she was meant to burn her tongue and eaten that first bowl?

Applying this passage to the story, perhaps the lesson is not that Goldilocks should accept the first thing that came along, whether it fits her or not, rather that she need not become disturbed about the fact that the first bowl was not for her. Perhaps the moral I can take here is that it is alright not to want what presents itself to me first, or second or even third. It’s alright if a person, place, thing or situation doesn’t suit me. I can accept that it isn’t right and move on without becoming so emotionally unhinged. I can happily try the next bowl of porridge, content in the knowledge that while the first bowl wasn’t what I wanted, this next bowl might be. And eventually I will find something that is just right.