Updated Serenity Prayer, Finally with COURAGE or "Teeth"

Yes, it's a mighty long-winded mouthful compared to the weak, defeatist slave-oriented original, but it's infinitely better, stronger, more honest and intelligent (IMO).

This is the original: 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.

Here is my updated version: This is my most honest and humble appeal to the appropriate unseen power, and/or to my own higher self, whichever ACTUALLY exists, to grant me the serenity to not be driven mentally-emotionally unsound by the things I cannot change, to grant me the courage and ability to change the things I can that truly NEED to be changed, regardless of popular opinion or perception, and to grant me the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

The biggest difference in my version is that outright ACCEPTANCE of the things we cannot change, when truly the case, is most certainly NOT an option.

A butterfly who is flapping it's wings. Beautiful . Namaste.

Well the original doesn't say you have the choice to change the things you cannot. It asks for the ability to accept it.

Which is to accept things in life that cause us unnecessary struggle when we fight against them. We can all decry our fate, shake our fist at our mortality, struggle against inevitability... and it does us no good. Accepting this does not imply slavery, it releases us from struggle.

Obviously I apply the saying to myself without gods involvement.

If you cannot change something, seek to find a path that allows you to move beyond it. Or, you can sit there struggling and fretting needlessly about things you have no control over.

Acting in accordance with your values and seeking to focus your attention on things you can change in order to attaining them, is far more logical to me than fighting against futility.

reply to post by winofiend


I reject fighting against futility, reject the guaranteed failure of taking mere blind stabs in the dark, as much as anyone with enough wisdom, but believe fully ACCEPTING various evils and injustices is THE primary-BY-FAR way that they are perpetuated, kept alive, with too much political power and influence. Defeatism-pessimism is too often believed to be wisdom, which only results in the tyranny and tragedy of good people continuing to do NOTHING.