The Serenity Prayer can be a fantastic time saver, guiding what to think about and what to do: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
There is wisdom in there, that isn't immediately apparent. Procrastination is mainly about fear, people will put a lot of effort into something we know will work out well, or that doesn't matter if it goes wrong. It isn't about simple laziness, with most of us it is about what is at stake, about risk, and fear. Hence the line: the courage to change the things we can. That is coupled with the line about accepting things we really can't change.
The last line reads well, but I would suggest it could be expanded to: 'sit with a piece of paper and contemplate how a thing might be changed; all the possible ways and variants on those ways, if it is really impossible or just looks impossible. Spend half an hour on it. Do a 'what if', try explaining to somebody how it is impossible, see if they come up with a way that makes it possible. Maybe imagine you had succeeded and work backward to how you did it.'
I'm posting to see if what I'm thinking makes sense, but even more to see what other ideas there are on this meditation
I am agree. Other than the appeal to a god, the serenity prayer has a great message that everyone would benefit by seeking it for themselves. One of the good things about Christianity is its incorporation of ideas from stoic philosophy which I this case has been transmitted in to the AA religion.
