Getting through security

A couple of days ago, my friend and I were waiting to get through Security at the Philadelphia airport.  Every choice we made, every line we picked, led to the slowest and longest line.  My friend started to get agitated.  I had opened up to him that morning about my Buddhism, so I took this opportunity to point out the need to accept things as they are.

He countered, "But if we always accept things as they are, we won't be motivated to improve anything.  I want to make things better.  That can only happen if I first get upset when I see things that are wrong."

I responded by paraphrasing something I read in "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.  While Tolle is NOT a Buddhist, his ideas are certainly compatible.  I think Tolle does a brilliant job in this book of addressing the apparent contradiction between accepting things as they are and being a force for change.  So I said to my friend, "It's all about the timing.  In this moment, this millisecond, this microsecond, this nanosecond--NOW--accept things as they are as if--to quote Tolle directly--you had asked for things to be this way, as if you had asked for this imperfect situation.  In the next moment, ask yourself if there are actions you could take to make the situation better.  If so, act."

I gave my friend an analogy.  "Imagine if you are playing in a basketball game.  The stakes are high and the score is close.  The player you are guarding jumps, shoots, and scores.  This is not the ideal situation for you. But will it help you to resist it?  Will it help to invest emotion and thoughts into wishing it had not happened?  Or is your team more likely to win if you fully accept the reality that it happened and then move instantly to assessing what you should do next to steer the future the way you want it to be?"