Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom

The origin of the Serenity Prayer used by A.A. is an interesting journey of research of who was first in concept and first in literal wording.  Regardless of its origin, the key words Serenity, Courage and Wisdom are interesting character attributes.

First the prayer (which will be familiar to all):

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."

The longer version continues: 

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.  Amen


So understanding what is inside our "circle of influence" (using a Stephen Covey term) and outside our "circle of influence" is Wisdom.  The trouble is, that all those things on the outside "disturb" us and coming to peace with those emotions - hardship, loss, suffering etc. requires courage to change our thoughts. It doesn't mean ignoring them - it is accepting them as facts.

Peace in a cloudy world.