Long time readers know that while I’m not much on structured religion, I am big on spirituality, and as such I like to study a variety of different religious philosophies. One of the most valuable things I’ve ever read is the Serenity Prayer. For those not familiar with it:
God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things that I can and the
Wisdom to know the difference.
Most of the people I know who have high stress levels are that way because they worry and fret over things that they have no control over. They miss the first part of that prayer – something you might call an operational philosophy. Things happen in life that we absolutely cannot change and once we learn to accept those happenings, then our stress levels can go down (depending on how we manage steady or daily stress). If you ARE feeling stress, fretting over things that you cannot change, then you need to work on that skill of identifying the difference and learning how to let go of the worry about it. Instead, you focus your thoughts and energy on how to cope with it; deal with it.
Toward that end – I thought it might be interesting to look at a list of the things that I can or cannot change, and I believe that this list is applicable to most folks.
The things we can control:
Being Kind. We get to choose, in every instance when the opportunity presents itself, whether we will embrace being kind or if we won’t. We have control over this and can choose to be kind. Being kind is free. Spread it everywhere.
A positive attitude. It is easy to have a bad attitude, to be negative or pessimistic. It takes no energy and it absolves us of responsibility to improve whatever the situation may be. However, you can also choose to have a positive attitude or outlook and find a way to make what seems a bad situation into a good one, even if it’s only to learn something from what’s going wrong. I knew a soldier who had been an abused child and he chose not to consider himself a victim but instead put value on having learned to function through pain. I submit to you that if he can have that positive outlook about such a painful and heinous situation, you can learn and make something positive outlook of nearly every circumstance.
How hard you work. You control how much energy and effort you put into any given task. You determine what you are willing to sacrifice to accomplish a goal. You determine what you’re willing to tolerate as you pursue overcoming a challenge. How hard you work at anything is entirely up to you.
Where you set your boundaries. We interact with people across a spectrum of relationships every day. We have family, friends, workmates, strangers, acquaintances, service folks (like the cashier at the grocery store) and more. We set boundaries for our interactions with each person dependent on how we relate to them, how much we trust them, what the interaction circumstances are and more. We control what those boundaries are for ourselves, but we have to remember that the other people involved set boundaries too and they may set different boundaries. We should respect that.
We control how much attention, time and energy we invest in taking care of ourselves. I don’t mean exercise and eating clean, although those things are included, but I mean a holistic approach to self-care. We decide how much time and focus we put into our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. If our self-care is lacking in some segment, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
We control our goals. Our goals can be identified in a variety of ways and are dependent on our specific motivations (money, recognition, knowledge, etc.) but each individual determines what their goals will be. To attain those goals we have to have a sufficient level of commitment, work hard enough (see “how hard you work” above) and focus enough on the process we’ve figured out to attain the goals. It all starts with selecting the goals and that’s up to each of us to do for ourselves.
Now, what are the things we can’t control?
Probably the biggest stress cause I’ve witnessed and something that is nearly 100% out of a person’s control is the opinion of others. There is an amazing amount of freedom and stress reduction attained when you stop caring what other people think about you. Just be you. Be the best person you can be. Be hard working, humble (where applicable), compassionate and polite. If others then want to have an unfavorable opinion of you – that’s their problem. Don’t let their opinion cause you stress. There’s no need for it and nothing to be gained by it.
I’m going out on a limb to say the second biggest cause of needless worry and stress I’ve witnessed is people worrying about the past. You absolutely cannot change it. You may regret it. You have to deal with whatever your actions in the past bring to your present and future, but stressing the past is a waste of time and energy. You can’t change it. “It is what it is,” is never more applicable than when used to describe the past.
Just like you can’t control other people’s opinions, you can’t control their feelings either. You may have an effect on how they feel and you may perform actions or say things that help them feel better (or worse), but you can’t control their feelings. Empathy and sympathy both make us want to help people we care about feel better, but there’s a limit to what we can do.
One “out of our control” that is often hard to accept is the expectations that our families place on us. Most of us remember growing up either trying to meet the expectations of our parents or thinking that the expectations were either unrealistic or a waste of time – because we didn’t see the value in meeting them. Parental expectations are often a source of stress for teenagers and young adults but as you get farther into adulthood, expectations of siblings and extended family also can create stress if you worry about them to much. You can’t control what people expect. Just be the best you.
And now the three that I think a lot of people fret about and yet we can individually do nothing about them: Politics, the weather and traffic (or commuter congestion dependent on how you travel to and from work). In the United States, each of us has a voice through the ballot box. Our vote represents our values and beliefs as we cast that vote for the candidate who most closely represents us. We cannot control the outcome of the elections. We cannot control the words and actions of the candidate after they’ve been elected. We can only vote. Worrying about politics beyond that is nothing but a source of stress.
The weather can bother all of us and changing seasons can create discomforts in the form of allergies or aches and pains (depending on your age and background). But nothing you do can ever change the weather. It’s a great source of stress management if you learn to function in a wide variety of weather at a young age and just decide to live your life each day DESPITE the weather.
And that commuter congestion thing… I am blessed that I don’t have to drive to work, ride the subway, etc. But there are times when I have to for a variety of events. It is easy to anticipate the average or usual amount of time it will take you to travel from home to your work location, but there is no way of predicting the millions of things that can happen along the way to interrupt the smooth flow of travel. Take them in stride. Give yourself a little extra time, just in case. But being upset that traffic is bad or the subway is running behind or your favorite elevator is out of service… gets you nothing but increased blood pressure.
Know the difference in the things you can change and the things you can’t. Put your energy into changing the things that you can change and want to. Accept (or dismiss concern about) the things you cannot change. Moving forward, when you find yourself getting upset or stressed about something, stop, take a breath and ask yourself if it’s anything you can control. Learn the “wisdom to know the difference.”
