Know Your Limits
abracad, · Categories: self help, spiritualityA wise prayer, known as the Serenity Prayer, adopted by that noble organization Alcoholics Anonymous, runs like this:
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.
And therein lies much of the key to a happy and purposeful life.
Life is challenging, offering many more potentialities and temptations than any one of us could begin to explore in a thousand lifetimes, never mind the one we have in the here and now. Its journey follows a rocky road of inescapable obstacles that must be addressed to progress further.
But how do we begin to find some order from the seemingly infinite complexity? The process begins with the recognition of personal boundaries of influence. We are each born into specific conditions, and these conditions dictate the area(s) and degree to which we can make our mark on the world around us.
Our conditions include where we are born, our family circumstances, and our particular talents and vulnerabilities, as well as the "random" experiences we encounter during our lives. These conditions determine certain limits on what we can, and can't, control; eg no matter how clever and charismatic we might be we can never be president of the US unless we were born within its borders.
As finite beings it's essential we determine the limits of our control in order that we focus our energies into those areas we can change, while simply acknowledging and letting go of those we can't.
But the limit of control is not a simple division between what can and can't be controlled. Instead it consists of multifarious factors determining the degree to which our influence applies. For instance we have a lot of influence over our choice of career or place to live, less so over the governance of our nation - though we may still choose to enter politics or activism - and virtually none over the weather or length of the day.
So our life choices are not simply dictated by what we can and can't control, but by the degree of control we can exert, and the importance we ascribe to each competing option.
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Filed in: self help, spirituality
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