God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
That sentence comes from the serenity prayer. I suppose I’ve always struggled with knowing the difference between the things I can change and those things I can’t. For years I was obese and laboring under the illusion that I couldn’t change it. On the other hand, this year I’ve spent entirely too much time thinking about things I can’t change: the ongoing overreaction to a virus by various bureaucrats whose actions will likely cause 100 million people to starve to death by the end of this year thanks to the lockdowns, the social distancing “rules”, the mask “mandates”, rioting, the election, and censorship. Maybe one day I’ll get through this thick skull of mine: I can’t control other people, especially their emotions.
The only thing I can do is to live my life the best way I know how:
- To refuse to live my own life in fear
- To inform myself of the facts of the situation
- To act according to my principles, even if that means going against the crowd
Or maybe I’ll just start yelling “Serenity now!” when I’m feeling overwhelmed by it all. Although that didn’t work well for Kramer or George in the end.
Since we could all use more serenity, let’s close this post with the remainder of the prayer:
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
Reinhold Niebuhr