Serenity

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things that I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next."
I know this prayer simply for one reason: my grandfather is an alcoholic. He has been sober for nineteen years, but he still regularly attends AA meetings. The Serenity Prayer was obviously written for alcoholics, however I feel that there is much to be learned from both the prayer itself and the Alcoholics Anonymous credo.
To begin with, alcoholics admit a truth that we as humans are loath to admit. They admit that they are weak, undisciplined and therefore are in actual need of help. While society looks down on them and visually condemns them by agreeing, we fail to acknowledge how much we tend to be like them. However, the scary truth about the world is that alcoholics are self-diagnosed, meaning that the ones who are in really bad shape are the ones who don't even fit under the category of alcoholic.
If we realize that these people whom we condemn on a regular basis are no different than us, we must listen to what they have to say. Once we realize that alcohol is as much of a drug as any pleasure or selfish pursuit, we realize that we have the same problems they do. Granted, an over-eager businessman is not as at risk as the drunk when either are put behind a wheel. The single man who trolls bars and clubs to pick up women may not drink himself into poverty either. And even the laborer who indulges in a simple vice every now and then shares in common with the alcoholic.
However, as the AA program clearly states, acknowledging you have a problem is step number one. But admitting we have a problem is seldom an easy task. We live in a society that embraces an anarchistic view of dependency rather than acknowledging the age-old truth that man is, in fact, a social animal. We live in a society where "getting ours" is more important that providing for the general welfare of the community. Men like Donald Trump and Bill Gates are lauded as examples of what we should aspire to, rather than the mundane civil servants who provide us with life-giving and life-saving graces. At the risk of sounding cliche, the fireman is more socially beneficial than the entrepreneur.
But I seek not to disuade people from entrepreneurial endeavors. Rather, I would encourage us to examine our own consciences. What do we feel about our interactions with our fellow men?
So often, we seek to get as much as we can. We want to take what we think is due to us. However, as Aquinas notes, if everyone were to demand just treatment, the universe would be unable to supply for the demand. Not everything is fair, and not everything can be fair.
And so, against many, and probably most, of my friends and family, I have come to realize something. We are not in control of much of our lives. We are at the whims of those who surround us. Certain branches of psychology, behaviorism most especially, espouse the idea that we are who we are based on what circumstances we have been in. Our minds are set by the events and people who affect us. I would venture to say that much of this is true.
However, I diverge from the behaviorists and state that we are shaped and the form of our personality determined by how we react to these situations. It is true that there is little we can verifiably control in our lives. We cannot force people's minds, nor can we create something from nothing. We are mostly left to the good or ill favor of those who surround us and make themselves our friends.
And so I take strength in saying the serenity prayer. For there is a great amount that I cannot change. It does take courage to change what I can. And sometimes I fail to see the difference. If I can but achieve the gifts asked for in this prayer, I can, in fact, find myself reasonably happy in this life.
On top of all of this, I have also adopted the alcoholic credo of "One day at a time." By this ideology, I shall not try to force the future or be daunted by it. If I can but live my life for the now, trying my hardest to make the future bright based on what is before me in the present, I can stop worrying and feel less anxiety.
I feel that we, though we claim not to be alcoholics (for most of my readers), can learn a lot by the AA system. I don't wish to force it on anyone, but serenity is not the worst prayer a person can pray. And if we can truly find the blessings asked for in the prayer, I cannot see how this world would be anything less than a paradise as nobody will seek to try to force anyone's hand nor will we find ourselves upset at what we have no control over.