A murder at 5AM in Brooklyn ended one man’s life and changed another’s forever. The man whose life was changed was Derrick Hamilton. Just 17 years old, he was arrested for the murder. This was terrifying for Derrick, because he did not commit the murder. He thought that the truth would come out in the trial. It did not.
The judge refused witness testimony of the one person who could prove his innocence. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Derrick appealed the case and did so successfully, but just eight months later there was a terrible Deja vu. Again, he was arrested for murder. And again, he was wrongly convicted for life.
This time, he began to study law in prison, and he did so with determination. He read law books cover to cover. He studied his own case, but also the cases of dozens of other wrongly convicted inmates. Although three decades of his life were taken from him, he was able to help countless others with his hard-earned legal expertise. His sentence was eventually overturned. Today, he is free.
Most people would have taken their settlement and rode off into the sunset. But not Derrick. He’s known not only as the most prolific jailhouse lawyer, but he’s now regarded as one of the most effective criminal justice reformers in America. Through his efforts, he is responsible for the release of approximately one hundred wrongly convicted people. He gave them their lives back. He continues this fight today.
When asked in an interview how he got over the anger, Derrick responded, “I never said I got over the anger. What I did was channel the anger into something else.”
In this article
Derrick’s story embodies a fundamental concept of Stoicism called The Art of Acquiescence. In this article, we’ll define The Art of Acquiescence. We’ll also explore why and how to use The Art of Acquiescence along the lines of resilience, efficiency, and perspective.
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What is The Art of Acquiescence?
The Art of Acquiescence is a concept from Stoicism that teaches us to accept things that are beyond our control rather than fighting them. It is not, however, passive acceptance. It is not giving up. The Art of Acquiescence is accepting the obstacle so that we can find another way around.
Resilience and The Art of Acquiescence
Derrick Hamilton’s story is compelling and relevant to The Art of Acquiescence for several reasons, but one in particular stands out. He obviously had to accept that his freedom—his life—had been taken away. This was out of his control. But he did not accept it passively. He wasted no time sinking into dark depression. He did not retaliate with aggression or hatred. Instead, he channeled his energy into something he believed: proving his innocence. He found another way around.
Resilience is about rebounding quickly from setbacks. This is closely related to The Art of Acquiescence, because we cannot begin to move forward if we are stuck resisting something bad that has already happened. Usually, we can’t even see the way forward until we have accepted that we have been blocked. So, The Art of Acquiescence is about accepting when things go wrong so we can move on and move on with clearer vision.
Efficiency and The Art of Acquiescence
There’s a concept in economics and investing called Sunk Cost Fallacy. This is when an investor continues to hold onto, or even throw more money into, a failing investment. The sunk cost fallacy leads the investor down an illogical path: I’ve already spent so much, so this has to work. I’ll keep at it.
Smart investors don’t fall for sunk cost bias. They know exactly when to exit a failing investment, and they adhere to their own rules strictly, regardless of how bad it feels to take a loss. Again, this is The Art of Acquiescence.
We need to avoid sunk cost bias by accepting losses in our own lives and moving on from them. This applies to all kinds of things: relationships, diets, jobs, general uncertainty, but also myriads of mundane losses and setbacks. Accepting a bad break, no matter how bad it is, prevents us from wasting more precious time and energy dwelling on it or resisting it.
Accept that you cannot be amazing at everything
Another way to apply The Art of Acquiescence is by deciding to limit what you’ll be great at. This has been a fairly recent realization in my own life. There are many hats that I wear. Obviously, I write this blog, so writing and my philosophical practices associated with it are things I want to be great at. In addition, I have a full-time career, so this blog is really a side project for the moment. I’m serious about exercise. I’m serious about meditation. My family is the most important thing—in fact, at the time of writing, I’m about two weeks away from becoming a father.
I realized that I’m not going to be great at all of these things. At best, I can be great at two of them. That’s it. I think we’re led to believe that we can and should be amazing at dozens of things. But there’s that old saying: Jack of all trades, master of none.
Social media probably doesn’t help. Its feeds are optimized to show us what we’re interested in. My feeds show me exercise, meditation, Stoicism, writing, and more. It shows me people being amazing at these things. The result is I internalize that I should also be amazing at all of these things, because I care about all of them. My interpretation of The Art of Acquiescence tells me that I should choose one or two things at most to really focus on. For everything else, I can accept that I will be merely good or OK.
Perspective and The Art of Acquiescence
Practicing The Art of Acquiescence requires (and builds) a wider perspective. Accepting the roll of the dice leaves no room for blame or aversion to accountability. Blame is not compatible with The Art of Acquiescence, because it keeps us stuck on the problem. We need the right perspective (or Right View as it’s commonly referred to in the context of the Noble Eightfold Path) to see beyond the problem. What lies beyond the problem is the solution.
“Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.”
– Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way
There are even rare cases where we can use the problem to our advantage. When Derrick Hamilton was arrested under his first wrongful murder charge, he was 17. He says that he was a teenage product of his environment—certainly not committing murder, but involved in minor illegal activities. Fast forward through his three-decade-long struggle in prison and with the justice system, and now he teaches law at Cardozo School of Law in New York.
Final thoughts
The Art of Acquiescence is simple: accept the bad so that you can move past it. The faster we do this, the better. Loss, failure, and mistakes can be brutal, so practice The Art of Acquiescence with compassion for yourself. You shouldn’t numb yourself or become a machine. Feeling the pain is part of the process. If you don’t feel the sting, then you’re not awake. You must be awake and aware to learn from the loss—to grow from it and see new perspectives.