Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
To me, one of the most irritating things one person can say to another is” That is the way it is. There is nothing we can do about it.” Yes, learning to accept what we cannot change is necessary for peace and contentment, but we need to recognize when acceptance is necessary, versus when it is just a convenient excuse not to have to do anything. There are so many things in the human world that are plain and simply wrong, and most acknowledge this, but instead of trying to change things we place the power in other people’s hands, and say there is nothing we can do about it. This is one of my personal frustrations when I choose the harder path. Too many people just say well you shouldn’t be taking that path anyway, because the proverbial ‘they” said so.
In my mind, anyone who takes that attitude has no sense of their own history.
The so-called “modern” world would not even exist if the non-traditional thinkers … the “change agents” had not only ignored the neigh-sayers, but went ahead proved them wrong. We can’t circumnavigate the world, because it is flat … can’t change that. That disease is incurable, we can do nothing to help them. We are just ordinary people, there is no way we can fight against a monarchy. These days, it has almost gotten worse in some ways. Many of us have become so attached to our own physical comfort; habits that have been ingrained into us by the simple concept of “that is how everyone does it” because it is the easy way, that we lose the motivation to change anything even when we can. That is not MY problem. They are not even in MY country. I had no problem finding work, how come they can’t? It’s the LAW.
Plain and simply, for many things, the ONLY reason that ” That is the way it is. There is nothing we can do about it,” is because the majority has decided this is true so won’t bother even trying to change them.
Sure one individual may not be able to change a whole society alone. That makes sense. But if everyone agrees that something needs to change, or at least enough to actually make a difference, than things not only CAN change, but they will. The problems with the US “democracy” is a perfect example. US citizens are so convinced that they as people have no power to change the way things are working at the top-level that they don’t do the very thing that will put the power back in their hands. Basically stand up and say: “No more!!” It is within the power of the people to reconvene the Constitutional Convention (the actual force behind the Constitution that the US waves like a flag), and basically sit down and make the damn document work the way it should.
Why DON’T they? Because ” That is the way it is. There is nothing we can do about it.”
So the next time someone tells us we can’t do anything about it, how about we ask “Why not?” Stop using acceptance as an excuse! In the philosophy I live by, there is no such thing as trying. There is only doing. Trying means that at we have not put all our effort into something. We have accepted limitations, often put on us by others, and frankly given up. Doing means that even when we fail we continue forward, attacking from a different angle if need be, until we succeed. If we want to make a difference, let’s make a difference. I don’t ACCEPT that we can’t. How about you?
