If we rail and kick against it and grow bitter, we won't change the inevitable; but we will change ourselves. I know. I have tried it. I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played the fool and railed against it, and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I brought upon myself everything I didn't want. Finally, after a year of self-torture, I had to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn't possible alter.
Interpretation
Resisting the inevitable harms us more than accepting it.
This quote by Dale Carnegie emphasizes the importance of accepting situations that are beyond our control. When we resist and fight against the inevitable, we often inflict unnecessary suffering on ourselves, leading to frustration and turmoil rather than the desired change. Acceptance can lead to peace and better decision-making.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of acceptance in overcoming challenges.
When I asked him -Mr.Henry Ford- if he ever worried, he replied: "No. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe that every-thing will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about?
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
By talking to yourself about the things you have to be grateful for you can fill your mind with thoughts that soar and sing.
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing about your life?
Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.
Not a having and a resting, but a growing and becoming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.
And which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.
In going on with these Experiments, how many pretty systems do we build, which we soon find ourselves oblig'd to destroy! If there is no other Use discover'd of Electricity, this, however, is something considerable, that it may help to make a vain Man humble.
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