This is because the things they want to influence are not within their ability to alter. Even those who try to change events or others’ opinions with civil, respectful behavior often find themselves frustrated as things refuse to change. People do not change their minds when others shout at them or call them names. On some subconscious level, we truly believe that we can make other people see our point of view if we just have one more conversation with them, explain our position one more time or, sometimes, yell loudly enough. We often have an overinflated sense of our own power to enact change.
…And the wisdom to know the difference.ĭiscernment is one of the most difficult skills to master especially when it comes to dealing with our ability to influence the world around us. The penultimate line of the first stanza of the Serenity Prayer asks God to help us find the inner strength and deep well of bravery we all possess and turn that willpower and courage toward bringing about the changes that matter to us. It takes time, effort, energy and, yes, risk. It is not easy to go up to someone we respect and say “I disagree.” It is not easy to face down someone who is screaming with hate and say, civilly and respectfully, “You are wrong and here is why.” Truly creating change does not happen from behind a screen or around a water cooler. It is easy to complain, especially from behind the protection of a screen name and keyboard. Ironically, many of the loudest virtual voices have never done a thing to help the causes they claim matter so much. In the age of social media and the internet, it is easier than ever to jump on the bandwagon and complain about an event, person, policy or organization. The first two lines of the Serenity Prayer ask for perhaps one of the hardest things of all: the strength to both accept that some things are out of our control and come to peace with that fact rather than drowning in useless, toxic rage. The inevitability of those facts does not make them less horrible, but it does mean that there is nothing we can do about it. In our hearts we know that there is nothing we can do to change some facts of life. We do the spiritual equivalent of punching a brick wall and expecting the wall to come down instead of our knuckles to bruise and split and break.
We deny the terrible news of a deadly diagnosis and stick our heads in the sand. We rage against the congested traffic and fall prey to road rage. When faced with something we wish we could change, we often fight it. Everyone has things in their life they wish that they could change, whether it is something as small as the traffic and congestion that fills a person’s daily commute or something as serious as a loved one’s diagnosis with terminal cancer.
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