Summary

This chapter is dedicated to what the men have agreed is the fourth pillar to joy, acceptance. Acceptance, Abrams argues, was what allowed the Dalai Lama to live in exile for more than 50 years without, “as the Archbishop put it, being morose” (223). It was also the same factor that allowed Tutu to not “accept the inevitability of apartheid,” but to “accept its reality” (224). The Archbishop preached “we cannot succeed by denying what exists,” but instead, “the acceptance of reality is the only place from which change can begin” (224). In other words, part of living a joyful life is to stay grounded in reality, or to accept the world around oneself.

Abrams argues that acceptance “allows us to engage with life on its own terms rather than rail against the fact that life is as we should wish...