Thursday, January 20, 2011

Accept it, change it, or leave it....

OMG I could just cry.  I had this wonderful blog written, at least 5 paragraphs, and *poof*, "internet explorer has stopped working".  And of course the damn draft last saved before I had written.  That's what happens when you type as fast as I do.  So, maybe I can try it again here and hopefully get to the points that I was making.Accept it, change it, or leave it.....That's the abbreviated version of the Serenity Prayer:


God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.


Okay off subject for a moment, sort of - I am STILL mistyping "serenity", mixing up the i and the t, and I AGAIN added an "e" to the end of wisdom.  Same brain fart I see.  Grrr. (and yes, I went back and corrected the errors LOL)
I'm having to rely heavily on the Serenity Prayer these days.  I've come to the conclusion that those that annoy me will not change.  Some of them I have asked to change, others I have not because I know it would fall on deaf ears.  Those that I have asked, pretend that they are deaf and don't hear, or choose to ignore me.  That's fine, I've made my requests known and put the proverbial ball in their court, but they have so far refused to change.  At least I'm smart enough to realize that they won't change, and now have the opportunity to make changes within myself so that I can better accept them.  Over the last year or so, I've found an inner peace that comes from realizing that you can't change others to conform to your expectations, you have to work on yourself and how you deal with them.  I still get bent out of shape sometimes over things, but not like I used to.  They are not worth it.



I also came to realize, after having dinner with an old college roommate last year, that I cannot hold someone responsible for another's behavior, or expect them to "fix" the problem.  Amy and I had a wonderful dinner, and talked about a lot of different things, remembered old times, and talked about the "new" things in our lives.  I had told her about a particular situation that I was experiencing, and how I had been reacting to it, and she asked me how I thought it was fair to hold the one person responsible for the other person's behavior.  It was like a light bulb went off in my head.  I knew I couldn't do that.  So I started dealing with the problem myself, which still hasn't fixed the problem, but I can deal with that.Leaving it isn't alway an option and of course depends on the situation, and whether you can accept the circumstances where change won't happen in others.  Now, y'all please don't think I'm talking about my relationship with Brian, I'm not.  But now that I've mentioned it, I will say this - whenever you're in a relationship with another person, you do have to think of the Serenity Prayer throughout, but especially at the beginning.When you meet someone and start to learn about the person, and what their values and ideals are, you have to think "can I deal with this person if they never, ever change anything about themselves, EVER."  If there's anything about the person that bothers you, you have to think if it's small enough or unimportant enough to accept, or if it's a so-called "leave it" issue.  What you might find cute today, might drive you nuts next year and then you'll be faced with the "can I accept this, or is this a leave it issue".
I had written more than this, but am ill now because the stupid internet keeps “breaking”, and I keep losing some of this.  I suppose from now on I will write in MS Word, then copy and paste it into the blog.  What a royal pain in the ass!!!!!

1 comment:

  1. dammit to hell....the formatting is wrong and I can't get it fixed. I had to resort to Google Chrome just to be able to try to post the damn thing b/c IE kept shutting down. I'm too tired to care at this point, but just know that I didn't intend to have these giant paragraphs.

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