Serentity, courage and wisdom: choosing to care
This is the opinion of Sarah d’Uscio, CSB sophomore and Op-Ed Editor for The Record
“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.”
This is the prayer said before Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and other addiction recovery places.
While it is mainly associated with addiction, I believe it is something everyone can use.
At the beginning of first semester, my cousin died of a drug overdose. It made me change the way I think about the drinking and drug use that comes from being in college, and well, just the world.
Drinking and drug use are often viewed as just a part of the “college experience”. It is easy to joke about addiction or assume serious consequences won’t happen to you or the people in your circle. I often hear the term “it’s not alcoholism while you’re in college,” which is both dismissive and dangerous.
Losing my cousin forced me to confront how close those risks actually are. There is nothing wrong with choosing to be part of that experience, but it is important to recognize that no one is immune to addiction.
Through this experience, I realized that the Serenity Prayer is also about grief and life itself. Accepting the things you cannot change takes strength, and finding the courage to change the things you can takes even more. While we cannot change what has happened to us in the past, we can choose how we respond moving forward.
There is a lot happening in our world right now that we cannot change, at least not as college students. People in our country are losing loved ones every day, including families being separated through immigration enforcement. While we may not be able to fix these problems on our own, we can control how we respond to them through the choices we make, the empathy we give others and the way we look out for the people around us.
For me, the Serenity Prayer is a reminder that even when we feel powerless, our actions still matter. Acceptance does not mean indifference, and courage does not always mean changing the world. Sometimes, it means choosing care, awareness and compassion in the spaces where we do have control, like CSB+SJU.