A few weeks ago, a client asked me, “What is the difference between acceptance and resignation?

We hear a lot about the importance of acceptance for people who are facing hard situations—a diagnosis, a loss, or some other painful situation that is outside their own control. But my client pinpointed something important: there can be a fine line between acceptance, a healthy response which can help us move on with our lives, and resignation, a mental state that can lead us to become psychologically stuck.