Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 – 1971)
The Serenity Prayer is the frequent identify for a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. The most effective-known kind is:
God, grant me the serenity to simply accept the issues I can’t change,
Braveness to vary the issues I can,
And knowledge to know the distinction.
I’ve by no means thought deeply concerning the prayer—though it actually got here up within the lessons I taught. Nevertheless, the video under by the thinker Luc Bovens titled “Desire a Significant Life? Be taught to Management Your Thoughts,” bought me pondering extra about it. Bovens believes that the prayer presents a false dichotomy. He argues that there’s a house between serenely accepting and courageously altering—and that house is greatest stuffed by hope. Hope lies between lively change and passive acceptance.
Now think about how this is applicable to Bovens’ matter within the video under—residing a significant life. We can’t act in order to ensure that life is significant, however we shouldn’t simply settle for that it’s significant both. What we are able to do is act in the hope that life is meaningful whereas accepting that we are able to’t be assured that it’s. So hoping involves both active and passive components. And that is a substitute for the alternatives provided by the prayer’s false dichotomy.
Right here is Bovens explaining this.
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