Acceptance

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.

The serenity prayer—so simple, and yet—it’s taken me 20 years to fully comprehend what it means. And I’m still not there.

When people are spiritually disturbed, it’s usually because they are trying to change something they can’t. I will generalize here about politics, because politics is the act of trying to change the world, the idea that one person can make a difference, or that thousands or millions of people doing a small part can make a difference, when the reality is that none of that is true—nobody can make a difference. For example: I am a mishmash of many things—I am a Reason Libertarian, an Objectivist, and conservative about some things as well, but mostly I am a man of the right—and nothing is going to change that, really. There isn’t going to be one thing you can say that is going to change my mind about taxes, about capitalism, about Israel—I am not persuadable. I am not going to “see the light” by reading your riposte on Twitter. I am not responsive to logos, ethos, or pathos. Not to say that I’ll never change, but it’s not going to be because of you—through a process of falsification, I’ll arrive at a different conclusion over the course of many years. But no, you are not going to change me. And if you try, you are going to end up spiritually disturbed. Better to just accept me for who I am, to accept other people for who they are, because they ain’t gonna change, and you are going to tie yourself up in knots to try to change them.

No, you’re not going to change the world. Isn’t that what graduation speakers always say? Change the world? So I take that back, a little—there are some people who actually manage to change the world, in a small way, but at great cost, and you have to ask yourself, are they happy? No, they are not happy. Because there is always more to do. Which gets back to my favorite question of all time: do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? Hollywood likes these biopics of these heroes who sacrificed everything in order to change the world, one man against the system, and they beat the system, but that is not how it usually works out. If you are going to be one man against the system, the most likely outcome is that the system is going to squash you like a bug, and no one will remember your name. And if you do want to change the world, it will take more than Facebook and Twitter posts—you have to have skin in the game. I don’t give a fuck about changing the world—I’m only interested in changing myself. I actually gave the graduation speech at Coastal Carolina University in 2022, and that was the focus of the speech—changing the world is a big waste of time, and will live you unhappy and unfulfilled. Look at all the people in politics—they don’t look like very happy people to me. Instead: get a job, make some money, buy a house, raise a family, be happy. You can’t change anything. If people had any idea of the extent their impotence, their inability to change anything, they would give up immediately. But no, people think they are gods, and I don’t know a lot about God, but I can say one thing for sure: there is one, and it isn’t you.

So when you read in the serenity prayer that you should change the things that you can, you have to realize that the universe of things that you can actually change is pretty close to zero. Some people take the serenity prayer too far: “I don’t have a job, and I just have to accept that.” No, dumb fuck, you have to go get a job. That is within your control—to an extent. If you have a pair of pants with a stain on it, you can take them to the drycleaners. That is within your control. If you have a leak in your roof, you can get it fixed—that is within your control. If you are hungry, you can make yourself a sandwich. That is within your control. Who is president? Not within your control. Making managing director at your firm? Sort of within your control, but mostly not. Having a podcast with 100,000 subscribers? Sort of within your control, but mostly not. If God wanted you to be managing director, he would make you managing director. If God wanted you to have a viral podcast, he would give you a viral podcast. The results are not up to us—all we can do is do the footwork. Show up and do a good job every day, with consistency. That is all we can do. If you don’t get any of these things, then God didn’t want you to have them, and maybe you are better off. Maybe you will get other, better opportunities. Maybe you won’t. And that’s okay.

What are you in control of? Your own happiness. And that’s pretty much it. No matter what the circumstances, we can choose our response and our attitude, which is basically the lesson of Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, except Mark stole a bunch of other people’s ideas without attribution and dropped a lot of F-bombs, and put an orange cover on it and sold 6 million copies. I wish I had thought of it myself.

Acceptance is the answer. And I am stealing an idea here: if there is a person or thing that is bothering you, the answer isn’t to change that person or thing, but to accept it as it is exactly as it is supposed to be at this moment in time. Your efforts to change things are often counterproductive. If you have a family member who is an addict, have you had any success in trying to change the family member, and get them to stop being an addict? Of course not. They will change when they will change, and not a moment sooner. Are your tweets going to get Trump out of office? Or course not. So you can either accept Trump, or you can be miserable for four years, and maybe in a cruel twist of fate, JD Vance will get elected two more times and you’ll be miserable for twelve years, 15% of your life. Sounds like fun! And remember, if you complain about something, or if you attack something, you make it stronger, if you haven’t figured it out by now. The answer is to accept things exactly as they are at this moment in time. If you can’t do that, you are in for a lifetime of misery. Elon Musk seems to be pretty good at changing things right now. Well, you’re not Elon Musk, and again—is Elon happy? Probably not. Would I trade places with Elon Musk? No, I would not.

Change is puny. So I am kind of a hypocrite, because here I am telling you that you can’t change the world, but I have been and currently am an opinion journalist, and the point of that is to basically try to change the world. But change is puny. One thing I learned from my editor at Bloomberg Opinion is that you want to write about small things. If you write about big things: Trump is good/bad, capitalism is good/bad, health insurance is good/bad, people tune you out. If you write about small things, like raising the cap on SALT deductions from $10,000 to $20,000, people will be more receptive to your ideas. Innovations are puny as well. People don’t like big change, but they can handle small change. The only time people like big change is when they are absolutely miserable and have reached the point of maximum pain, like FDR in 1932, or Javier Milei in Argentina last year. And big change isn’t always good. Au contraire, it’s usually bad.

Try to practice acceptance in every area of your life. Someone always makes smart-ass comments on your Facebook posts? Accept that person exactly as he is supposed to be. Kid not living up to your expectations? Accept him. Not getting the recognition you think you deserve at work? Accept it, or find another job—this is partially within your control. That last part of the serenity prayer—the wisdom to know the difference—you can live ten lifetimes and still never fully acquire that wisdom. Back at Lehman, we were judged on having a bias to action. These days, I have a bias to inaction. I don’t do things. I don’t try to change people or situations. Believe it or not, usually that problem will work itself out if you ignore it long enough.