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Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

As much as the serenity prayer comes across as some tacky shit you'd find painted on a wall in that one handwriting font in a beach house in Florida... it's the greatest distillation of human wisdom I've ever found.

I've been in therapy many years, and you wouldn't believe how often it comes up and we discuss it in the context of some problem in my life. So much of life's difficulties hinge on the axis of trying to figure out where we can place our agency and where we should.

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Exactly; powerlessness is a big source of stress / anxiety / etc, but when you truly accept that you can't for example change other people or things outside of yourself will never be exactly the way you want them to be, then you'll be a lot more at peace.

To phrase it negatively, it's a kind of selfishness / indifference. But it's not "I don't care", but more "it is what it is".

The difficult part is to also be careful as to not become one of those YouTube "stoics" who just stay in "I don't care" state for everything. We can't control other people, but we can try to influence them towards a better path if needed.

I see some people accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, but then have no courage to change the things which should be changed because they have no wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Spinoza has a much deeper and more effective approach to this, I found.

If you like this I highly recommend you read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations if you haven’t

An easy read that dives into stoicism, a similar mindset, within the context of running the Roman Empire.

Great read.

The two people I knew who really liked the serenity prayer (and wanted everybody to notice) were assholes. It can mean something like "See, I struggle every day with important issues concerning my power, and, I'm wise about it too! Also I consulted God, turns out you have to put up with some things," which makes it into an excuse for being really controlling.

My preferred version: do what you can, don't sweat it.

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