Serenity: Highly Overrated

I often hear people in meetings and elsewhere talking as though they crave Serenity as some sort of drug. I certainly hear this craving when others are praying the Serenity Prayer in meetings (as you know, I don't participate in this practice of communal prayer in AA meetings....but don't me get me started!): Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change... And I hear it when some people begin advocating rigorous efforts at prayer and meditation: do it and you will find serenity!

I personally believe Serenity to be highly overrated. Looking back over what I remember of the last 55 years, I can't remember one important or substantial thing that I have learned from a moment of serenity, no matter how long that moment. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Instead, I see that I've learned most important insights into life by means of pain, sorrow, grief, anxiety, depression, anger, shame, fear, jealousy, discomfort and so-called character defects. That's an abbreviated list to be sure. But in this list of mine, you will not find the blessed experience of Serenity.

I think we are confused when we think that we need serenity in order to do anything, including the ability to accept the things we cannot change. Personally, I've never found the ability to accept something that I cannot change as a result or consequence of first experiencing a sense of serenity and/or peace. Rather, I tried as best I could to change something that I thought needed to be changed...and tried and tried and tried to change it...all to no avail. And if you know me, you'll know that I didn't give up then. I tried and tried and tried again and again and again.

The clearest and most obvious example of this doomed attempt to change something that I could not change was my long term attempt to "not be an alcoholic like my father." Every single time when my alcoholism would pop out like a jack-in-the-box into my life, I would reel back in shame and humiliation and then devote Herculean amounts of energy to push that fact back down and cover the lid on it. By God, I was not going to become an alcoholic!

Did God or anyone else grant me serenity before I finally accepted what I could not change (the fact that I was indeedy an alcoholic!)? No. No way. What happened is that I ran out of energy and willpower. I finally gave up the fight. I fully accepted who I was: alcoholic. When I did that, everything in my life, past and present, all came together into a comprehensible whole. Everything made sense. Every drink, every drunk, every shame-filled aspect of my diseased life.

I think that's what people call an experience of serenity.

And it happened to me that morning of October 20, 2001. And it's happened many times since. Not for long periods. Just brief moments when things all seem to be what they are without any desire or longing on my part for them to be anything other than what they are.

I said that serenity was overrated. I didn't say that serenity didn't exist or that it wasn't an amazing experience. It does and it is. But if I begin the day "seeking it" I never find it. It's not the prerequisite to my being able to accept what I cannot change: it's the consequence of my full and unreserved acceptance of that which I cannot change: Me. The mysterious ever changing Me.

Take care!

Mike L.