Dave Evans

We're just trying to take the easiest path we can.

Most people who are in denial and resistance just make it harder and more painful.

We're just trying to do this thing as easily as we possibly can.

Hmm.

Yeah, we had really worked on being good acceptors for a long time.

You know, we were a second marriage.

We had both been through failed marriages, and we understood the finitude of relationship, and we were thrilled to be happily married to somebody.

They were not horrible marriages, but marriages that didn't last, and we were thrilled that we had a second shot.

One of our kids, you know, is bipolar and drags a heavy bag behind him.

He's now happily married with two kids, has a wonderful life, but it didn't come easy.

You know, and these are not things you can negotiate easily with.

You can't tell a bipolar brain, why don't you just behave better?

So we had already been around a lot of things not of our choosing.

You know, my father killed himself when I was nine.

So reality was something that we had been in school with before.

And that allowed us to go to acceptance first.

The long, slow path to it doesn't look attractive to me.

Yeah, acceptance is step zero.

Before you can even begin formally, the first step in design is empathy, deeply understanding what's going on.

But before you even do that deep understanding, you have to be willing to accept, and that is what is in fact true.