![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Some people use the Serenity Prayer...
Apr. 22nd, 2010 07:56 pmWhat will come, will come.
There are many things in the world that I cannot change. These things affect me - how could they not? I live in the world, after all. My life is often moving with tides I can't control. That's when I sit back and say, "Okay. I will do my best to make sure that when I hit land, it'll be in a good place. I'll do my best to make the ride pleasant. But I accept that what will come will come, and it may not be what I expected but I will make the best of it."
This too shall pass.
When I'm in the thick of it, when it is just too much and I want to die because surely being dead would be easier than this - I remember that this will pass, and I am comforted with the promise of an end to the misery. When I am in the midst of joy, I remember to treasure it, because this too shall pass. When I want to cling and hold on to this moment and never let it go - I release it, because this too must pass.
Meet yourself where you are.
I picked this up from Havi, I think, completely out of context, but the idea is this: I can't force myself to be what I'm not. When I think, "I should be more flexible than this," that's not meeting myself. When I think, "I will remember this because it's important, don't you know how important it is, self? You'd better not mess this up," that's not meeting myself. I need to accept my limits and see them as simply what is, not as deficiencies or losses.
Bits of carbon.
The atoms that I am made of have existed since the universe began to exist, and they will exist until the universe ceases to exist. Everything I see, everything I touch is made of those same atoms. Matter is constantly flowing through me, through my blood and skin and breath. I am a hundred kilos of matter in a universe too huge to conceive of. I am nothing. And thus, if I screw up it doesn't matter. If I say something wrong, it doesn't matter. If I am upset about classes it doesn't matter because seriously, one bit of carbon getting mad at a thing that doesn't even quantitatively exist? Pshaw. And thinking this, that I am small beyond imagining in the universe, gives me great peace.
There are many things in the world that I cannot change. These things affect me - how could they not? I live in the world, after all. My life is often moving with tides I can't control. That's when I sit back and say, "Okay. I will do my best to make sure that when I hit land, it'll be in a good place. I'll do my best to make the ride pleasant. But I accept that what will come will come, and it may not be what I expected but I will make the best of it."
This too shall pass.
When I'm in the thick of it, when it is just too much and I want to die because surely being dead would be easier than this - I remember that this will pass, and I am comforted with the promise of an end to the misery. When I am in the midst of joy, I remember to treasure it, because this too shall pass. When I want to cling and hold on to this moment and never let it go - I release it, because this too must pass.
Meet yourself where you are.
I picked this up from Havi, I think, completely out of context, but the idea is this: I can't force myself to be what I'm not. When I think, "I should be more flexible than this," that's not meeting myself. When I think, "I will remember this because it's important, don't you know how important it is, self? You'd better not mess this up," that's not meeting myself. I need to accept my limits and see them as simply what is, not as deficiencies or losses.
Bits of carbon.
The atoms that I am made of have existed since the universe began to exist, and they will exist until the universe ceases to exist. Everything I see, everything I touch is made of those same atoms. Matter is constantly flowing through me, through my blood and skin and breath. I am a hundred kilos of matter in a universe too huge to conceive of. I am nothing. And thus, if I screw up it doesn't matter. If I say something wrong, it doesn't matter. If I am upset about classes it doesn't matter because seriously, one bit of carbon getting mad at a thing that doesn't even quantitatively exist? Pshaw. And thinking this, that I am small beyond imagining in the universe, gives me great peace.
