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The concept of surrender seems disempowering.

An alternative to surrendering is renouncing.

To renounce something is to take an active stance against it and commit to something different.

Renunciation has a built-in moral dimension of acting differently in the future.

If you are familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), you may know that its concept of surrender is one of its most contentious notions. The idea of surrender can seem disempowering, especially if you are supposed to turn your will and your life over to the care of a higher power. If surrender is necessary for recovering, some people may believe, then recovery is impossible for them.

The term surrender seems to imply giving something up involuntarily, which results in some sort of........

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