The Wisdom of the Serenity Prayer.
“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.” American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr crafted this well-known and loved invocation during the Great Depression, and it’s become a touchstone of the global twelve-step community.
Of course, you don’t have to be religious or in recovery to appreciate the distilled insight of this gem, especially as we move into midlife, where acceptance of our new realities (and challenges) comes with the territory. It is inevitable that we will all come face to face with our changing bodies, health issues, loneliness, financial instability, and the fear of the unknown. The challenges are real, but often the pain comes from resisting that which is unchangeable (a constant) or feel the regret of not addressing that which is fixable (a variable). Wisdom offers you the insight into your emotional algebra.
Reacquaint yourself with the liberating logic of this prayer. Its wisdom belongs to all of us.
