"You can only change yourself to fit into it"

There's a post in this journal in which I talk about an observation that a friend of mine made about the world--that we cannot change it, per se, but can only change ourselves so that we may adapt to it. I think the post walks through my reasons for rejecting that philosophy: if you cannot believe that you can, in fact, change the world, you never will. I ended it with a reminder to myself to not give up hope; to believe that God does have big plans for me, and that what matters most is to never forget that I am a conduit for change, not the source of it myself. Sit Deo Gloria and all that.

When I was writing my "10 years from now..." for my high school yearbook my senior year, I quipped, "fixing the world...with duct tape."

When I was a kid, people would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I joked, with just the slightest bit of seriousness, "take over the world, so I could fix all the things that are wrong with it." ...peacefully, of course.

I took a management styles profile test for a training course at work this week. After the course was over, the instructor told me that I had the most ideal leadership profile out of anybody they'd tested--not a perfectionist, not hungry for power, not destructively competitive, high aspirations, and a desire to bring people along with me as I reached for the sky. I suspect the results are a little bit skewed, since I've read enough to know what kind of leader I'd like to be...not necessarily that I'm able to pull it all off (yet). One thing that stood out, though, is that I do have a strong desire to have control over things; if I have a strong conviction of how things should be done, I push hard to have them get done that way. I like to think that I'm flexible when I don't have a strong conviction, and that I'm not so stubborn that I can't be persuaded over to better approaches, but that's for other people to judge, not me.

A recruiter friend met with me when I was at the lowest point in my unemployment. She'd had three conversations with me up till that point. She believed I would be a CEO someday. I don't know if she just read it out of the values I'd expressed up to that point, or if she just knew how much those words would give me some much-needed hope and confidence in myself. I hope to someday prove her right.

I like to believe that my history has been as it is--the sorrows, the joys, the blessings, the griefs--because those experiences enable me to do things that others cannot. I have been given so much, and I feel the call to multiply those blessings, not bury them in the ground or keep them to myself.

My name means Healer. I try my best to live up to it.

Today, I have to wonder whether I'm so motivated to fix the world because it's the only way I get peace of mind. And when I'm wondering about that, I have to wonder whether it's a good thing or not that I'm wired this way...

How do I moderate that heart in me?

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

...the serenity prayer. Oft-quoted. I discovered and jokingly pointed out to a friend that it's also used for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Today, I found the latter half of it, which is almost never quoted...

...Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Not as I would have it. Not my will but yours be done.

Niebuhr himself did much in the realm of social justice, acting humbly on God's behalf.

...how can I get there? And how far away am I?

Not my will but yours be done. It's the prayer I pray most often.

But...oh dear...I'm still very far away, aren't I?