The Wisdom to Know the Difference
My grandmother had the Serenity Prayer in a small, framed picture hanging in her kitchen. It read:
“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.”
Growing up I walked past those framed words thousands of times and yet I don’t remember ever slowing down to really think about the meaning of the words. If I did, I probably very quickly decided that it didn’t apply to me because I could not imagine that there was anything I could not change if I tried hard enough. After all, I grew up being told and believing that I could do anything. If I tried something that did not achieve my desired result, I simply thought that I needed to try harder or try a different approach.
I don’t begrudge my parents and teachers for instilling in me the belief that I can do anything if I try hard enough. To the contrary, I’m grateful for their love, support and their confidence in me….I simply missed the implied asterisk after their words:
You can do anything you want if you try hard enough.*
The * means you, I and everyone else can do anything we want if we try hard enough so long as the thing we want is within our control. The good news is that there is a long list of achievements that are within our control. Here are a few examples:
- Physical fitness and athletic achievements such as 5Ks, marathons, triathlons, weight lifting, biking, hiking trails, climbing trails and the list goes on (assuming there are no medical issues)
- Academic achievements – college, trade school, certificate programs, graduate school
- Financial clarity and stability
- Self-care
- Eating a healthy diet
You may question whether some of the above examples are within your control but the reality is if you work hard enough and make choices to focus on these areas you can achieve any of them – you’ll have to make some choices and give up some other things like logging off of social media and going to bed earlier but if you really want it, you can do it.
There are also things that are not within our control but which we can influence. Here a couple of examples:
- While you cannot control whether you are chosen for a job you want, you can set yourself up to be a strong job candidate by learning what the job entails and beginning to behave “as if” you are already in the role, which demonstrates to the person making the hiring decision that you are the person for the job.
- You cannot control political decisions but you can get involved in the political process. Even if you do not want to run for office, you can research the candidates and campaign for the person who most closely aligns with your beliefs and priorities.
While a lot of people don’t like to accept that there are things they cannot change, that’s where the wisdom comes in. People often complain that there simply are not enough hours in the day while they waste time thinking and talking about things they cannot control:
- What other people say, do, think and feel
- The weather and natural disasters
- Traffic
- The economy
- Disease and death
- What other people think of them
- And the list goes on….
In my personal experience and my experience coaching people in all walks of life, the “thing” that most people struggle the hardest to accept they cannot change and waste the most time and energy trying to change is other people. The bottom line is that while we may be able to influence other people, we cannot control what other people say, do, think and feel and, perhaps the hardest to accept, we cannot control what other people think of us.
At my core I’m a people pleaser and before I came to understand “the wisdom to know the difference” I wasted a lot of time worrying about what other people think of me. While I confess I don’t like it, I now accept that what other people think of me is none of my business. I frequently say the Serenity Prayer as well as a version that has served me well:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept that
I cannot change or control other people.”
All I can do is live my life, be who I am and treat other people with respect. What they think of me is up to them.
Each day consists of 1,440 minutes. When we waste time trying to control or even just worrying about what other people say, do, think (or think of us) and feel, the weather, traffic, disease and other things that we cannot control, we are giving up time that we can never get back and time that we could choose to use on other more productive things that we can control.
Do you spend time worrying about or trying to control things outside of your control or do you accept that, although you may not like it, you cannot control everything and focus your time and energy on changing the things you can control?
It’s your life so, as always, the choice is yours.