Why worry about the winds, when you can adjust your sails?

More than half of the deaths last year and the years before were not caused by COVID but worries, stress, and anxieties. Many of those who stressed themselves to death were dismayed and upset by people, events, and circumstances beyond their control.

I’m lucky to have learned early that life is a journey across rough and turbulent seas, and since I cannot control the winds, I have to adjust my sails. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr composed a very beautiful prayer in 1932. It says: “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.” Most of our mental and emotional stress are due to man's daring to change things beyond his control. A husband wants his wife to stop nagging, the wife wants to reform the husband's behavior. They will never ever change each other. Marriages are broken, many infidelities start not from the temptations of third persons but from frustrations and resentments from marriages. Adulteries and concubinage emanate from unsettled issues driven by compulsion to control the other. Only the husband can change his ways, only the wife can decide to shut up.

Parents want their children to be miniatures of their own personalities, pursuing the same interests, but the more children are controlled, the more they assert their independence. Both end up frustrated with each other. They cannot change the winds, they have to adjust their sails. Life is very short. We cannot afford to spend years trying to reform a spouse. We will end up disheartened. When the husband and wife meet, they already have their own mind. The mind consists of two faculties; will and intellect. The will is in constant search for whatever’s good. The intellect always looks for what’s true. Neither husband nor wife, neither parent nor child can impose his truth and his goodness upon the other. We just have to respect the dignity of each one's choices and uniqueness.

Many of us don’t like the fact that we were born into a poor family and had to struggle to attain a better life. Others don’t even like their parents and endlessly blame them for their predicaments. I met a lot of people who continue to blame some persons who took advantage of them or cheated them. They still allow the victimizers to continue inflicting damage on their lives, by their lingering hatred and bitterness. But all those are already past. No one can change it. But we can change our reactions and responses to all those. We can never remain as prisoners forever of our past. We can move on and become wiser.

There are many things we cannot control and thus, shouldn’t worry about. We should attain serenity, peace of mind, acceptance. When I was young, I was bold and ambitious. I wanted to change the world because I saw a lot of oppression, social injustice, and corruption. I was an activist and got detained by the military. I came to my sense that changing the world was beyond me, so I just wanted to change the country, I joined the government, still I couldn’t do it. I just wanted to change Cebu, I asked to be transferred to Region 7 as a labor arbiter. I was dismayed,

I left the government and joined the private sector, I wanted to help the economy. I failed. I married and attempted to change my wife's ways. I failed. I ended up changing my own ways na lang. Saint Francis taught us his prayer: “If there is hatred, let me sow love”. I saw the hatred in myself for failing many bigger things. But I found the value of love. Indeed, the song is right. Learning to love myself is the greatest love of all. For how could I love others, if I fail to love myself. And that, I can control.