“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.”
– Reinhold Niebuhr
Some ideas stick with us because they feel immediately true.
The words often called the Serenity Prayer have been around for a long time, and they’re shared by people from all sorts of backgrounds and belief systems. That’s probably because they touch on something we all wrestle with at some point: figuring out what we can actually change in life, and what we simply can’t.
It sounds simple enough. But when you’re in the middle of a difficult situation, the difference between those two things isn’t always obvious.
Most of us spend a lot of time trying to keep life under control. We plan things carefully. We try to solve problems quickly. We think through every possible outcome in the hope of avoiding trouble down the road.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Effort and responsibility matter.
But life has a way of reminding us that not everything responds to effort.
Some situations improve because we step in and do something about them. Others don’t change at all, no matter how hard we try.
Learning to tell the difference between those two situations is where the real wisdom comes in.
The courage to change what we can
There are plenty of things in life that are within our control.
The way we treat people.
The choices we make.
The effort we put into our work and our relationships.
Those things matter more than we sometimes realise.
When something in life isn’t going well, it can feel overwhelming at first. But it often helps to slow down and ask a very simple question:
Is there something here that I can actually change?
Sometimes the answer means doing something uncomfortable – having a conversation we’ve been avoiding, setting a boundary, or making a decision we’ve been putting off.
Courage in those moments doesn’t usually look dramatic. Most of the time, it’s quieter than that. It’s simply choosing to deal with something rather than pretending it will sort itself out.
And often, small changes make a bigger difference than we expect. One honest conversation, one decision, or one shift in perspective can change the direction of a situation more than we realise.
When we focus our energy on what we can change, things often start to move again.
The serenity to accept what we cannot
At the same time, there are plenty of things we simply cannot control.
Time keeps moving forward.
Other people make their own choices.
Unexpected things happen.
Even the best plans in the world can’t prevent every difficult situation and a lot of stress comes from trying to control things that were never really ours to control in the first place.
We replay conversations in our heads, imagine how things should have gone, and hold on to frustration about situations that can’t be undone.
Acceptance can sound a bit like giving up, but that’s not really what it is. Acceptance simply means recognising reality as it is, rather than exhausting ourselves by fighting something that cannot change.
A simple observation by the Dalai Lama captures this perfectly:
“If you can do something about a situation, why worry?
And if you can’t do something about a situation, why worry?”
It’s surprisingly practical advice.
If something can be fixed, then energy is better spent fixing it. If it can’t be changed, then worrying about it doesn’t help very much.
Acceptance frees up our energy so we can focus on the parts of life where we can still make a difference.
Learning to tell the difference
Of course, knowing this in theory is one thing. Figuring it out in real life is another.
Most of the time, this kind of wisdom comes with experience. Over the years, people start noticing patterns. They learn that some problems respond to persistence, while others require patience.
Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is simply pause for a moment. Stepping back from a situation makes it easier to ask a couple of honest questions:
Is there something I can do here that would actually help, or is this one of those moments where acceptance might be the wiser response?
Those questions don’t solve every problem. But they often help us respond more thoughtfully. Without that pause, it’s easy to fall into one of two traps: trying to control everything, or giving up on things that could actually improve.
The balance usually sits somewhere in the middle.
A simple way of looking at life
What makes the Serenity Prayer so powerful is that it doesn’t pretend life will always be easy or predictable.
Instead, it offers a simple way of approaching whatever life throws our way.
Some days call for courage – the willingness to step in, take action, and change what we can.
Other days call for serenity – the ability to accept that some things simply fall outside our control.
And somewhere between those two responses is wisdom: learning to recognise which one the moment requires.
It’s not something anyone gets right all the time. But even pausing long enough to ask the question can make life feel a little clearer, and sometimes a lot calmer.
And, if you found value in this article, you may also enjoy the wisdom we share in Slowing Down and Choosing a More Intentional Way to Live and The Privilege and Beauty of Growing Old.
