Today and the Serenity Prayer

I've had quite a few weeks of essays and seminar leading, and other school crap, etc. Today I finished my Essay on Obama and Hillary with less than 40 minutes to spare. It was cutting it close, but now I can rest a little.

This morning I woke up and my first thought was 'today is going to suck'. I then sat there thinking for a while. Why would I choose to live if today is going to suck. I decided that I wasn't going to let today suck, sure it was stressful, but I'm just trying to be happy about doing things. I try to remember that life isn't that bad, and that I will have fun again, but most importantly that even if things do go badly, that's ok, life isn't always fun, it isn't always overly joyous, but at the same time, I can be content, I can be optimistic even if things aren't great.

I've been thinking about school and work tonight and possibly buying the WoW expansion tomorrow to start it up again, but I've been trying to think honestly that if nothing else goes right in life, I'm still going to have to find a way to be happy about today, and maybe I should try to be happy without 'quick fixes' like material possessions, video games, food, etc. Maybe I could just be grateful to be alive and enjoy myself as I am right now. All of this sounds extremely trite and simple, but I'm still trying to just live this way, so for me this was all revolutionary.

I'm not an alcoholic but I still love the serenity prayer:

"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.
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

I was going to analyze the lines I like, but I realize that every line is awesome. Today I'm thinking about the line "That I may be reasonably happy in this life". Still finding my daily Eudaimonea...

I'm going to have to memorize this, and read some of Niebuhr's stuff.