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God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
— Reinhold Niebuhr
God, grant me the serenity
Serenity means that I no longer recoil from the past, live in jeopardy because of my present behavior, or worry about the unknown futures. I seek regular times to recreate myself, and I avoid those times that make me vulnerable to despair and to old self-destructive patterns.
To accept the things I cannot change,
Accepting change means that I no longer cause suffering for myself by clinging to that which no longer exists. All that I can count on is that nothing will be stable – except how I respond to the transforming cycles in my life of birth, growth, and death.
The courage to change the things that I can,
Giving up my attempts to control outcomes does not require that I give up my boundaries or my best efforts. It does mean my most honest appraisal of the limits of what I can do.
And the wisdom to know the difference
Wisdom becomes the never forgotten recognition of all those times when it seemed there was no way out – and the new paths opened up, like miracles in my life.