Goal of Acceptance | Michael Teachings

Home > Overleaves > The Goal of Acceptance

The Goal of Acceptance

+ Agape
– Ingratiation

30% of the
population

Expression

BY PHILLIP WITTMEYER

If you have this goal, you do not like being different — it is painful to you. You seek to be in accord with others and with the world. You emphasize the ways that things are similar, rather than the ways they are different. In relationships, compatibility is very important to you, perhaps the most important ingredient — the more you have in common, the better you like it. In fact, you avoid relationships or situations that are just too strange. You are very much concerned with issues of liking and disliking. You want to like everything, and if you can't, this can be upsetting to you. This Goal makes you a "nice" person. You try to be polite, cooperative, and tactful. You smile a lot around other people in order to appear more attractive. You try to adapt yourself to others in order to get along comfortably with them.

This is the most "popular" of the Goals — in two senses of this word. By my count, well over twenty percent of the population has this Goal, a higher percentage than any other Goal, making it more popular than the others. In a secondary sense, people with this Goal are often quite popular with other people. A person with this Goal wants to be unobjectionable and inoffensive. He seeks to be pleasant. Other people usually like this. Of all the Goals, this one is usually the easiest for others to deal with because it makes its owner very agreeable.

The original name given to the Positive Pole of this Goal was "agape", pronounced "ah'-guh-pay". This is the Greek word for "love" of the philosophical sort — pure and noble altruism. Modern psychologists call it "unconditional positive regard". It is benevolence, goodwill, and kindness. Religion and philosophy generally proclaim this to be the highest virtue.

People in this pole desire a sense of belonging. It is important to them that they behave themselves benignly and beneficially in whatever situation or relationship they find themselves in. They want to be in communion with all things. Perhaps the best way to describe this is to say that they want to be on friendly terms with everybody. They are gracious and charming without insincerity. They pursue a meeting of minds by emphasizing what people have in common, and they de-emphasize the differences. They avoid disagreeing with others where such promotes harmony, but they do not back down from what is correct. Whenever they see strife, they want to reconcile the differences. Whenever they see two points of view expressed, they seek to find a larger viewpoint which will encompass the two. They think well of others, and wish only for their benefit. When dislike is expressed toward them, they are conciliatory without compromising their integrity. In short, they try to be loving.

In the Negative Pole of -Ingratiation, you want to be liked and favored. One of the surest ways to discern whether or not Acceptance is your Goal is to ask yourself how you behave under stress. You will often act out of the Negative Pole of your Goal when things are not going your way.

Do you try to "nice" your way out of tough situations?
Are you uncomfortable with the thought that you are different, so you try to act like everybody else around you and agree with them on every point?
Do you find yourself presenting yourself to others as overly nice and sweet — too charming to be trusted. Do you seem as if you are trying to win a popularity contest? Do you "butters others up" to gain your own ends? — the best sycophants have this trait.
Are you often afraid to "tell it like it is"?
Do you tell others what you think they want to hear, rather than the honest truth? Do you whitewash things: make them seem prettier, cleaner, finer than they really are?
Do you also use euphemisms so as not to risk any offense: sugarcoating your statements and using words which are softer, more palatable, and easier to hear than the strict truth?
Do you compromises your integrity if you think it will avoid criticism?
Does the idea of disagreeing with someone make you squirm with discomfort?
Do you run from arguments even when they would be beneficial?

In the extreme form, this Pole manifests as phoniness, insincerity, and hypocrisy. Such is the perversion of love manifested in the fear of being at odds with others.

Quite often the Negative Pole will kick in when you are asked to do something. You naturally want to accept, to say "yes". You will often indiscriminately go along with it without due consideration. After all, you want to please everybody. Only later do you realize you cannot fulfill the request, or you realize that you really do not want to, so you have to rescind your acceptance. Therefore the Ingratiating act leads to resentment or rejection on the part of others and the shame of separation on your own part — exactly the opposite of the intention. The way to overcome -Ingratiation is to consider and contemplate the Complementary Goal, Rejection — particularly the Positive Pole of +Discrimination. Be discerning in what is accepted, and only say yes to what is in accord with personal integrity.

Another way out of the Negative Pole is to consider the Counterpart of Acceptance, the Power Mode. -Ingratiation is a sign of weakness, but +Unification is an expression of personal power. People in the Power mode expect others to conform to them. On the other hand, Acceptance is passive, and people with this goal conform themselves to others. People in Acceptance are responsive to others, whereas people in Power expect others to be responsive to them. If you see yourself if as powerful, you will not likely do the weak and ingratiating thing.

The Complement of Acceptance is the Discrimination (Rejection) Goal. The two are the exact opposites of each other. People in Acceptance avoid rejecting and being rejected if at all possible — such is painful to them. People in Acceptance dislike arguments very much, and tend to walk away from a disagreement rather than confront the situation. They are not often contentious or antagonistic.

The disadvantage of this Goal is that people who have it uncritically embrace things as they go through life, and get themselves into trouble. It is a noble virtue to be big enough to accept everything that comes along, but few people are actually that big. Those that aren't find themselves accepting things they can't handle. The advantage of having this Goal is that the person is usually well liked, and this can open many doors.

Additional Thoughts On Acceptance

People with a goal of acceptance do not necessarily find it easy to accept difficult situations. In fact, they often find themselves in situations that are difficult to accept. Nonetheless, they usually bring to the challenge tools that can assist them, such as open-heartedness and agreeableness. (The positive pole of acceptance is agape, but one doesn’t have to achieve total unconditional love in order to be in the positive pole. A certain magnanimity or even tolerance is adequate.)

Acceptance is a “natural overleaf” for sages, since both are on the cardinal side of the expression axis. When sages have a goal of acceptance, it can be “overkill,” since sages tend to naturally seek acceptance anyway in order to have an “audience” for their self-expression. In the negative pole, a sage in acceptance can go to extremes in “bending over backward” to win favor, and have a tendency to obsess about those who don’t seem to accept them rather than focusing on those who do.

-- SHEPHERD HOODWIN

Outgoing, friendly, and natural lovers of humanity, people with a goal of Acceptance are some of the most approachable souls you will ever encounter. There is something in their eyes that almost immediately conveys understanding and an ability to accept people just the way they are. In short, these people are easy to be around.

Although popular with Old souls, this goal is occasionally used as a bridge towards resolving karma. The natural inclination to accept whatever occurs in life facilitates the burning of many karmic ribbons.

In the negative pole, there's a fear of not being liked. The resulting level of ingratiation can be so pronounced that in the words of James Thurber: "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward."

Famous Personalities in Acceptance: Socrates (I drank what?), Aristotle, John Muir, Carl Jung, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Pat Boone, Robert Redford, Stevie Wonder, Sally Fields, Gene Kelly, Matthew Broderick.

-- DAVID GREGG

Next page | Goal of Submission

.....................................................................................................................................