Change isn’t Change without Change

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” This is the Serenity Prayer originally authored by Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the greatest American political philosophers of the 20th century. This prayer has been widely utilized by people to seek inner peace or let go when faced with things outside their control. I had memorized this advice long ago and often used it to guide my decisions, until I saw a photo with the following quote which made me reflect my decision making.

“I am no longer accepting the things I can not change. I am changing the things I can not accept.”

In contrast to the seemingly resignation mind in the Serenity Prayer, this quote has much more a proactive and courageous mindset and focus on the courage and action to change the status quo rather than mere acceptance.

Even with the seemingly different tones, the two quotes are really the two sides of the same coin. The key question is when to take the courage to change or accept the things we can not change. This is the kind of decisions we face on a daily base in corporate life as well as personal life. 

First of all, there is a difference between acceptance vs. doing nothing about it. “Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it”, said Micheal J Fox who accepted the fact he had Parkinson disease at the age of 29 and subsequently raised $800 million for the foundation to cure Parkinson diesease.

Secondly, it is still up to the individual to decide what he or she can change. Here are examples of three extraordinary women who all made histories in different ways by refusing to accept the status quo.

One-hundred years ago on March 4, 1917, Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Mt., became the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. Rankin's election was extraordinary, as it happened about three years before U.S. women had the right to vote. She could have accepted the fact that she was not even eligible to vote at the time, Rankin instead found that there were no laws restricting women from holding federal office.

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially run a marathon when she completed the Boston Marathon before women were allowed to compete in Marathon. During her run, race official attempted to stop Switzer until he was shoved to the ground by Switzer's boyfriend. She not only completed the race, she went on to become the women's winner of the 1974 New York City Marathon.

When Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face for speaking out for girls education in Pakistan, she could have easily made the decision and accepted the fact the this was not something she could change. Instead, she chose to continue the fight until every girl could go to school and on the way she became the youngest ever Nobel laureate in December 2014 at the age of 17.

In the end, we all have to decide what we want to strive in life. For some, it is perfectly okay to accept the things they can not change. For others, they will always try to change things they can not accept. As Amelia Earhart put it, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”

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