Of serenity and Courage

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

What is one thing you don’t like about your life that is outside of your control? One thing within your control?

Well, this is a pretty loaded prompt!

I am, by no means, a religious man; or am I currently – nor ever have been on – any 12 step recovery programs, but even I am familiar with The Serenity Prayer.

The serenity to accept

The words “ the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” resonated with me as I was preparing my response to this prompt on Monday night.

One thing I don’t like about my life right now that I feel like it is totally out of my control. Is the state of politics in the United States today. I posted a few days ago about how I’m scared of the current tariff situation.

I know, some people will sit here and say that I can do something about the state of American politics by voting. Another thing that I can do is getting involved in going door-to-door or making phone calls for whatever candidate I will support in the next election. And the most cases I would agree, that is something that I can do to change things.

But last fall, I did have a gentleman come to my door, asking me who I was rooting for in the presidential election. I explained to him, I supported, he agreed with me. In fact, he was out going to door volunteering for the same candidate I voted for. He went out to tell me how originally he was going, just an hour a day, door-to-door, and within a few weeks, he was hitting the pavement eight hours a day five days a week. Essentially, he was putting in time that would’ve been equivalent to a full-time job to pull for a candidate who ultimately lost.

While I admire the amount of effort he put forth, I think that I would personally be devastated if I put that much effort into a presidential campaign; only to have my candidate lose. Right now, the state of American politics just feels so utterly hopeless and futile. But I’m sure that the losing side says that in every election cycle.

The courage to change

On the flipside, the line “the courage to change the things that I can“ also struck a cord with me.

One thing I don’t like about my life that I feel like I am total control of is my health. Specifically, eating butter and exercising more. It’s Monday night as I write this and I’m going to be going to the gym this evening. I want to try to at least get myself into better shape. So I don’t feel so bloated after eating and not so out of energy during the day.

Years ago, I used to see this anti-smoking public service announcement, where the slogan was “don’t quit quitting”. It was aimed, specifically, and people who are trying to quit smoking and went to go back to it.

I feel like I need to have the same mindset about going back to the gym. I need to remember to never stop “going back to the gym for the first time” if that’s what it takes to get me going on a regular basis.

I’ve said it all countless times, but I’ll say it again: eating better and exercising more will give me more energy, help me lose weight, and just give me general better mindset. I know all this. I’ve just had some things going on in my life recently that have forced me to have to rework my everyday schedule.

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