Serenity Now!

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . . 

Serenity:  The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled; a lack of agitation or disturbance.

When I recite The Serenity Prayer I fall into the trap of thinking the first sentence is primarily about acceptance.  (Ed. Note: What a great name for a prayer.  If I came up with one it would be called something like The Agitation Prayer.)  As you can clearly see - by reading the words - the emphasis is on serenity.  If I'm agitated or disturbed then I'm simply not accepting life as it is.  I have a tendency to try to solve my dissatisfaction with objectionable topics (politics, personalities, how my wife and family and friends and society are treating me, etc. etc.) by trying to become more accepting, cleverly skating past the being serene part, with predictable results on the state of my acceptance.  

Here's a party trick: stoke up a big resentment against a person, place, or thing, get all agitated and disturbed and self-righteous, then try to practice an attitude of acceptance.

Yeah, it doesn't work for me, either.