Some of these ideas are encompassed in Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous prayer, adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous: 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. Have the wisdom to pick your battles. And once you have, the flexibility and resiliency of strategies to use in those battles is summarized in something I once heard in a Quaker meeting: In the face of strong winds, let me be a blade of grass. In the face of strong walls, let me be a gale of wind.
