Beyond the Serenity Prayer

August 30, 2014

As discussed in Wisdom of the Serenity Prayer the words of Reinhold Niebuhr provide an excellent guide for living:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

However, once we have absorbed and started to apply this principle we may begin to recognize that life is not, unfortunately, so simple. This article presents two further considerations in determining how we should apply our limited resources. (more…)

Wisdom of The Serenity Prayer

August 7, 2014

In just three lines, Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer (as adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous) encapsulates a profound philosophy of life.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

We are each endowed with free will, but are bounded by external circumstance, personal limitation and the choices of others. We each have finite energy/resources but are exposed to numerous (infinite?) competing options/demands as to how these are employed. (more…)