I’ve been thinking about the Serenity Prayer.
You know the one. Goes something like
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
I’ve been thinking about it because a phrase got stuck in my head that seemed profound, and then I realised it was basically a reworked Serenity Prayer.
That phrase went something like
How do I know what I should fight to change and what I should fight to accept?
I’m all about the pre-fight fighting, the fight to even get to the fight. Don Quixote, staring into the middle distance… “I mean, it really looks like a dragon. But it also could be virtue signalling.”
During a three-month break between jobs I had a lot of time to categorise potential projects as serenity or… the opposite thing. When I say I had a lot of time to categorise what I really mean is I had a lot of time to think about categorising, which is to say thinking about how I think.
Thinking about how I think is, by hours spent, my number one favourite hobby. As hobbies go it fits somewhere between self-flagellation and NFTs.
BUT. But. But. Occasionally the thought clouds clear and through that pale sky of narcissism shines a ray of possible clarity.
There’s a 100% chance the Serenity Prayer you’re familiar with isn’t the original version. The prayer is such a mainstay of “inspirational quotes on pictures of a sunset” I stopped thinking anyone had written it. Any human at least.
But a human (almost certainly) did write it, American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and it went exactly like
Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.
This was around 1932. Unlike every revision of the last 90 years, Niebuhr begins with the call for courage to, and here he is unequivocal, change what “must be altered”. Gone is the wishy-washiness of “can”; here is the certainty of should.
That’s what you do first.
Why is this important? Because practically everything can be changed, but it takes discernment (thinking about thinking?) to determine what must be changed. What absolutely has to be changed. In comparison to the source, the later reworkings are so banal they might as well tack “or whatever” onto the end.
So first courage, and the clarity of mind to see what, given the rules you have set for your life, must be changed. Then, and only then, the serenity to accept what “cannot be helped”.
What you have to let go.
Attention is the beginning of devotion.
- Mary Oliver
See, the Serenity Prayer isn’t about acceptance. It’s about focus.
I’m finding it so incredibly hard to focus on anything right now. There’s a lot going on. I don’t want to shut it all out. Just maybe the stuff that cannot be helped. Except… do I know what that is? If it’s only true for me, is that cowardice?
Are these thoughts obscene?
And god, to change what must be altered. Please. At least that. Don’t let me fall into despair or, worse, casual philosophy. Don’t let me just maintain this too too solid flesh, this bag of good intentions. A watery sack who would have fought fascism, but didn’t want to be rude.
Someone once described a solution I was suggesting as “college kids in model United Nations”. It wasn’t a compliment.
The British call something “worthy” when they mean the opposite.1
After horrendous events, especially in the United States, people often offer their thoughts and prayers. When the offer is made by a person who could reasonably have done something to avert the horrendous events, those thoughts and prayers are worse than useless. Worse than useless, and that’s before you consider the people in question likely aren’t thinking or praying.
As a result, the offer of thoughts and prayers has become synonymous with being a piece of shit.
In a recent conversation a friend offered this definition of prayer: the collective focus of a group of people on another person’s problem. Not to draw the attention of a god who, presumably, is already well aware. Nor to sway the whims of that entity. Prayer as a way of saying, you’re not alone here. We’re thinking about these things too. Thoughts won’t change it, but focus can’t hurt.
Attention is the beginning of devotion, and we can do much worse than remembering our potential for devotion to each other. And find in that devotion, a kind of serenity.
This basically describes all British phrases.
To me, the serenity prayer's genius lies in the final phrase: the wisdom to know the difference ("the insight to know the one from the other"). Lots can be made about the fact that the original first called upon us to draw upon our courage to make the changes that are within our power to make, and secondly to find the serenity to accept what which "cannot be helped." However, it's having the wisdom to tell one from the other that is key. There's a reason the 12 step programs have latched onto this prayer. What we can control and what we cannot--a person needs to be able to discern the difference. You cannot change another person--you can only change yourself, is the message. We can only control so much--much is completely out of our control, and yet we often hit our heads against a wall trying to gain control. Accepting the things we cannot change--this is a life's work. And fighting for the things we CAN change--also the work of our lives. But figuring out which is which--without that, we are lost.
You are right, courage to change what "must be" starts first. Everything begins with that decision. And then when what you do to change things fails, you accept that you cannot.
Thanks for pointing that out.