I strive for the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

There is a written transcript immediately below the audio player.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

This wording is an adaptation of what is known as the Serenity Prayer. A theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, initially wrote it. So it was very much intended as a prayer. However, thinking about it as a prayer distracts you from the way that it works.

A prayer?

If you just think of it as a prayer, you believe that these qualities of serenity, courage, and wisdom are going to be given to you by God. To push the logic to its extreme, you have to do nothing at all about it, but simply pray for it, and one day you will be changed. It will happen to you.

Now, that is not at all the spirit in which Reinhold Niebuhr wrote this. And it’s not the spirit in which even the traditional Twelve Steps think of it. Keep in mind that most of the steps are bout ways to change attitude and behavior. The “prayer” part emphasizes to religious people how important it is: so important that they’re asking God’s help. If you don’t believe in God, then you have to find a way to do it for yourself. And people who believe in God also believe in making an effort to help God help them. So the difference is not as big as it might seem at first.

So let’s sidestep the notion of prayer and go into why these qualities are essential, and how they are at the heart of what the Twelve-step process is. It’s right there from the very beginning. Remember that Step One of the Proactive 12 Steps is that “there is a big difference between who I want to be and what I do. I am stuck in what I do.” So from the first step on, you are confronting the issue of what it is that you can change and what it is that you cannot change.

At the very beginning, in Step One, you are at least dimly aware that there is some difficulty in changing at all. Then you engage in this process to find out what it is that you can change, and what it is that you cannot change.

Serenity

So what about serenity? Well, as you have discovered through this process, the change does not happen by forcing yourself to be somebody you’re not. And it certainly does not occur by blaming yourself for the things you’re not doing. Progress comes from deciding to understand what it is that is happening. So you’re not forcing change from the very beginning. You have a sense of acceptance of what is.

“Acceptance of what is” is another way of stating: “accepting what you cannot change.” Accepting means finding some degree of serenity with it. If you cannot change it, you’re not going to keep banging your head against a wall. You’re going to simply notice that this cannot be changed and figure out what it is that can be changed.

Finding serenity and acceptance does not mean that you are abandoning any hope of change. You are merely figuring out where you have a grip, some possibility of changing, and where you don’t. You are orienting your efforts where there is a possibility.

Courage

Now, what about courage? Through this process, you have been figuring out that courage does not mean pushing yourself to do silly things. Courage does not mean jumping out of a tenth-floor window because you dare yourself to do that. If it doesn’t work, if it’s going to doom, it’s not courage. It may be lore like stupidity.

What you have been figuring out is that courage lies in confronting your vulnerabilities, accepting them, and staying with them. Doing this is very different from bluster. It is much softer, but also much more intense, much more difficult. You’re not avoiding feeling the difficulty, but you’re learning to stay with it.