Serenity Prayer

I love the Serenity Prayer because it teaches me how to deal with life on life's terms. It is through praying the Serenity Prayer, as opposed to just saying it, that I find peace.

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.
Living one day at a time,
Each moment at a time,
Knowing that personal hardship
Is the pathway to peace.

When I pray the prayer, I break it down like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
I think about the situation that is causing me distress and ask the old HP if there is anything about the situation that I can change to make it more acceptable to me. Then I shut up and listen for a few moments. If an idea comes to me I let my mind flow along with it to see how I can apply it to the situation.

Courage to change the things I can
Nine times out of ten, if there is a way to handle the situation, it's going to be something I don't want to do. I will either have to take some sort of action or (horrors!) tell someone I'm offended by something they do and ask them to stop. (I'm thinking about someone using the profanity GD. This really offends me.) I ask the old HP to give me courage to confront the behavior in a nonthreatening manner. Sometimes, I need the courage to simply walk away from someone whose actions are unacceptable to me. (Without taking their inventory first.)

Wisdom to know the difference
If I can't see any way to make the situation more acceptable or if walking away isn't appropriate (I'm not going to leave a meeting because the person sharing is using profanity. He'll shut up in a few minutes, so I wait it out) then I ask the old HP for the restraint to tolerate the situation until it's appropriate to address it.

Living one day at a time
Can I handle things just as they are for one day? If not,

Each moment at a time
I can always do this.

Knowing that personal hardship is the pathway to peace.
Oh, goody. There's always a catch. Why can't I get the peace without the hardship? I think it might have something to do with keeping the old HP close to me at all times, in all situations. The fact that I'm supposed to bend my will to align with His will might have something to do with it, too.

Have a good and sober day.