We had arrived at the monthly neighbourhood dinner. But there was a problem. A big problem.

We were three minutes late. And Ami had planned on being ten minutes early so we could put together our dessert before everyone else had arrived.

(And another possible problem was that Ami hadn’t eaten anything recently and it was now an hour past her normal dinner time. Rookie parenting error.)

So I’m sitting in the car with Ami. She’s crying. She can’t possibly go in, but she was really looking forward to it. We’d planned the dessert all week, a pyramid of chocolate cake and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting. But now it had all fallen apart.

Ami, who's 8 years old now by the way, asked me what she could do. In her mind the situation really was hopeless.

I said I thought there was a three-step solution:

1. Accept reality as it is, rather than how we want it to be.

2. Stop crying.

3. Go inside.

“But how can I accept reality as it is?”

Well … there’s the million-dollar question.

If you want to experience peace, joy, and happiness, I don’t think there is a more important skill. Accept reality as it is.

Of course I was talking to myself too … my plan wasn’t to be sitting in the car with a crying child while everyone else was eating, drinking, and being merry. But this was the reality.

I really like how Eckhart Tolle talks about this. He calls it surrendering. He says if you are in quicksand, surrender to being in quicksand. If you are in quicksand don’t fight it. You can be committed to a future where you are not in quicksand. You can influence the future reality. But the current reality … accept.

PS – We did manage to get inside. Ami accepted the current reality (by actually saying "I accept this reality"), she stopped crying (with the help of some food and a favourite music video) and we eventually made it inside (albeit by the back door so everyone didn’t see her come in).