Serenity

For once my title isn't a movie reference. An extremely astute reader (in other words, you can read my mind) may have noticed my play on a very famous saying in last nights post. What saying you ask? 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.

As an exercise to my readers, I'll let you try to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. You might be wondering what an atheist such as myself is doing quoting sayings with such a religious undertone. I guess, to me I see a meaning in that saying beyond any religious ones.

There are of course, things in your life that you will never be able to control. Your father dying of a heart attack. Your company doing layoffs. A tornado ripping apart your house. The list goes on. The problem I think, is that people sometimes add things to the list of "beyond there control" that they shouldn't.

For a long time, I think that's exactly what I was doing. I was putting things into the category of things I cannot change. Aspects of myself, aspect of my job, aspects of my relationships. All sorts of things.

Gaining control over one of my biggest failures in life has been nothing short of empowering. Taking control of my weight and my health has shown me what one can really accomplish with serious hard work, commitment and time. Imagine the number one thing you dislike, no, HATE about your self. Now imagine that thing was erased. What would you be left with? The second worst thing you didn't like about yourself? But, if you had enough self determination to change that number one thing, what's to stop you from changing that number 2 thing? Or the number 3 thing?

So, in answer to that previous question, what happened? I guess I took a long hard look at that list of things I considered "out of my control" (or, cannot change) and am trying to decide what really belongs on that list.