Well Howdy Nieburh

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold Nieburh

I love this quote. I truly do. The Serenity Prayer encompasses three incredibly admirable dispositions and weaves them together into a hopeful and insightful adage. It takes two incongruous concepts, acceptance and activism, and binds them together through the prism of wisdom and choice.

So what makes Mr. Nieburh's quote noteworthy beyond aesthetics (sounding nice)? It does a particularly fantastic job encompassing the nature of change. Let's look at the first part:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change."

Change is an inherent part of life, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. There are some things about the natural order of the world that we can not change; death, time, the weather, getting annoyed at Lady Gaga being stuck in your head...again, etc. These are the things that lay the groundwork for everything we do, and no matter how much we try to avoid them they effect everything we do. The natural order of the world are the universal variables that change the way the game is played, and it takes a great deal of wisdom to achieve a certain level of serenity with the finality and finite nature of life, the acceptance of your choices throughout time, and RA RA OOO LA LA......dammit...

There are also things outside the natural order of the world that are unchangeable. For example, within a two year span of my life: my parents divorced, my father married my best friend's mother, and my mother came out of the closet. A hefty bit of change to deal with indeed. But in order to survive with my sanity intact, I had to accept these new instruments of fate. I was not going to change my mother's sexual orientation, my father's genuine love for my best friend's mother, nor my parent's obviously fractured marriage. These were new variables that changed everything about my life, and thus fully shaded the perspective from which I saw and now see the world. It took time, patience, and understanding to accept these changes and gain a certain level of serenity with my family. One of the life lessons I learned from this experience was that a part of the nature of change is knowing that it's inevitable, and being adaptable to unavoidable changes is an irreplaceable virtue.

Let's now look at the second part of the quote:

"God grant me...the courage to change the things I can."

Real change is hard and it requires a great deal of fortitude, resilience, and yes...courage. There are very few true quick fixes in this world, and the larger the problem, the less likely a quick fix is possible. Whether a problem is small, large, personal, or organizational; change is the catalyst for success. But in order for that catalyst to spark, someone needs to light the fire. Change is not silent, and it takes real courage to fight for what you believe in. There is no honor in apathy, and no glory in complacency. However, there is validity in the age old saying, "if it ain't broke don't fix it." Changing for the sake of change is neither admirable nor wise, and this is where the last part of our quote comes in to tie everything together.

"God grant me....the wisdom to know the difference"

Knowing the difference between what you can change and what you can't is incredibly difficult. Being able to identify a problem, a strategy to solve the problem, and implementing that change all pose high levels of difficulty. If we misidentify a problem we may be trying to change something that doesn't need to be changed. If we create a faulty strategy to solve the problem it might get even worse, and if we can't convince anyone to implement the change then the idea wallows in futility. It takes an immense amount of wisdom to know if something needs to be changed, what needs to be changed, how we can change it, and convincing people why the change is necessary. If one part of this process goes, so goes the change. Therefore without wisdom, change is useless.

This will act as my intro manifesto. What I thought about change before I entered this class. I am hoping to gain more insight and wisdom in this subject so I can professionally and personally become more capable. Or at least be able to have a sense of serenity with the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.