Serenity

At one point in my life, every time that I heard someone reference or repeat the Serenity Prayer, I would roll my eyes, or at the very least, get that feeling inside that you get when you roll your eyes. I think that we all know it, but just in case we don't, here you go:

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.

See? You've heard or read that before, surely. Maybe tacked up in an office cubicle, modified with a picture of someone strangling a cat, or edited to include some witty reference as to exactly what you'd like to do to the person testing your patience. It's pithy, and quotable. It's also, as I think about it more as a philosophical text and less as a pop culture reference, actually pretty deep. So deep that it's been modified and included in 12 Step Programs, the modified version of which I had never read before, and you probably haven't either, unless you've been in a 12 Step Program, or you're a Wiki geek like me.

God, grant us the...

Serenity to accept things we cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can, and the

Wisdom to know the difference

Patience for the things that take time

Appreciation for all that we have, and

Tolerance for those with different struggles

Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the

Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other and the

Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

This version changes things completely. This is exactly the kind of life instruction I've been looking for, and the lessons are immediately applicable in my life.

There is so much that I want to change, and that I can't. My mind honestly works at the insurmountable things in my life like it's trying to solve a Gordian knot. Accepting that I just can't change them, that there isn't always a bold move to suddenly make them right, is really very hard for me. In my mind, letting go of something is tantamount to admitting that you failed at making it work. It's one of the reasons that my marriage lasted as long as it did. I didn't want to admit that it had failed, even though the evidence was all around me. I need to learn to visualize the weight that I feel from these things as rocks, and to just drop them instead of carrying them with me everywhere I go.

I could be spending as much time battling with these issues as I do because I lack the courage to just change the things that I can, and should. It's easier for me to tell myself that I don't know what to do to fix something than it is to accept the solution that would fix it, because I want a fixed outcome, requiring the serenity to accept that I can't change the outcome. There are times when I will worry at something into weariness, exhausting every possible outcome, just to avoid accepting the fact that I have to make changes, like ending my marriage.

Having the wisdom to know the difference isn't the same thing as the intelligence to recognize the difference. I'm intelligent enough to know, for example, that I can't force some things to happen in my life by my timetable. I can't, for example, force someone to choose a path in their life that leads them to immediately to me simply because it would make me happy. I know that. I'm not, however, wise enough to assimilate that into my day to day hopes and fears. On a certain level, I have this childish need to have my own insecurities and doubts allayed constantly, and I should probably see a therapist about that.

The rest of the 12 Step version is what really drew me in, though. Because I need the patience to realize that not all wonderful things in life germinate, take root, and blossom overnight. Roses may smell sweet when they're budding, but if we pick them too soon, they'll never attain the potential that they could have had if we had left them there until they were ready, yellow, and inviting. I need to learn to appreciate what I have, and not just yearn for what I don't. I need to learn that what I'm going through isn't what everyone else is going through, and that the people around me are struggling with their own problems. I need to learn to forgive myself for the things that I've done and can't change, and to forgive others for things that I'm still angry over.

The loving part I've always been good at. It's one of the reasons that I've learned over the years to be selective about the relationships that I engage in with people. Everyone deserves to be loved, at least a little, but the people in my life that I love, well, I never love in half measures. I do need to learn, though, that the strength to get up again doesn't always have to come from inside of me. I have a hard time reaching out to people when I'm in pain, a hard time admitting that I need help, because it's always seemed like an admission of weakness. When I do reach out, I need to learn when to stop asking for more than someone can give, because the world doesn't revolve around me. Well, except to my babies.

Which brings me back to my need for this whole philosophical lesson in the first place. I'm in a place in life that's unstable. The plans that I had made with the mother of my children about their future have changed a few times. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, but I allowed myself to think that it could all work out in the end. My faith was misplaced. I'm still not sure what's going to happen, but I know that I need to take steps to take care of it, so that it doesn't take care of itself without my input. My energy needs to be spent on securing what's best for them.

I feel like a man who's been handed a painting by Monet, while his house is in smoking ruins around him. Before I can figure out where to hang it, I need to, well, rebuild my house. Sure, I could just throw up some joists and sheetrock and then hang it on my impromptu wall, but if I don't have a house built around that wall, it's eventually going to fall. As much as I hate to, I need to stop admiring the beauty of the Monet, put it down, and get to work on rebuilding the house, making it stable and secure, a warm and comforting place for my children to grow up, admiring it's beauty with me. It's not going anywhere. It's still my Monet. Unless the deliveryman comes back and picks it up, because it wasn't supposed to be delivered to me in the first place. See? See how my mind works? This is why I need to work on this whole thing.

Next time we'll talk about the classic proverb that begins with "If you love something, set it free..."

Or maybe we won't, I don't know, I've got to shop for sheetrock and lumber first. Does anyone have nails? And maybe a hammer?