Courage to Change the Things I Can

The Serenity Prayer recited at  12-step programs meetings around the world goes like this:

“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’s the line that is challenging me these days…courage to change the things I can. I can change things about me. That’s it. I can’t change other people. I can’t get people to do things I want them to do or treat me a certain way. But I can speak up and use my voice. I can let people know what I want instead of staying silent. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get what I want, but at least no one has to guess what it is I want. And I certainly don’t have any chance of getting what I want if I don’t ask for it.

I can push myself into situations where I want attention and want to be noticed instead of waiting to be noticed.

The actor Liam Neeson is on the cover of two magazines this month. He is quoted as saying, “You create your own luck. It’s not gonna come to you.”

I’ve known that. Hard work. Persistence. Beat the pavement. Get out there and do what you need to do to make it happen.

But when does the effort evolve into… “And the wisdom to know the difference”?

I don’t know that I’ve arrived there yet with this memoir I’m querying. I’ve gotten nibbles from agents and encouragement, but that is all. No one has said, “I love this! I’d love to be your agent!” Is it back to the drawing board to make the story more palatable for readers? It isn’t a fun book, but it should be engaging and not too difficult to stomach. Who wants that? But the “Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris was hard to stomach and yet I couldn’t put it down because I loved the main character and wanted him to survive.

How do I get readers to love the main character in my memoir (guess who?) and want her to survive? Well, I love the main character in my memoir and want her to survive! And she did! And happily so, though it was hard, hard work. Painful, challenging, and oh, so rewarding.

So, I keep plodding on, writing articles, submitting short pieces from the memoir. I believe in this story because it’s about believing in yourself when no one else does. Believing in ourselves is sometimes all that matters. If I believe in me, I can’t make other people believe in me and my work and want to support it. But I believe in it, which is why I keep going.

We matter. We can’t make people believe we matter, but our belief in ourselves is what matters most.

So I’ll keep trying, keep putting myself and my work and my voice out there because I believe in me and what I have to say. That persistence is the key. Courage to change the things I can means courage to keep trying, to not give up. And that’s how I survived. I never gave up. I never quit and said I can’t do this. This being alive thing. I never said, I can’t live anymore. I can’t go on. No, I wanted to survive, to thrive, and I’d like my book to thrive as well. So I’ll keep trying to find an agent who believes in my story as much as I do. I won’t give up.

And the serenity to accept what I cannot change? I accept that I have a mission, and it ain’t over yet. Perhaps I need to accept that the exertion is the journey and to accept that with serenity, and not expect an outcome. Not have a goal. I do, but maybe I should let go of the goal and simply do my best.

Joyous Exertion

The paramita of exertion is connected with joy. In practicing this paramita, like little children learning to walk, we train with eagerness but without a goal. This joyful uplifted energy isn't a matter of luck. ..[W]hen we begin to practice exertion, we see that sometimes we can do it, and sometimes we can't. The question becomes: How do we connect with inspiration? How do we connect with the spark and joy that's available in every moment?"-- Teaching No. 72 from Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön