The Serenity Prayer addresses us directly in critical moments of choice, when we must choose our future. It’s these moments of doubt and uncertainty–and how we navigate them–that determine the course our lives take. Horace, the Roman poet, coined the term “dark night of the soul” to describe the pain and suffering, the mental fog and emotional friction, that accompanies these critical periods. Buddhists call it dukkha. And it’s no accident we find ourselves tossed and turned by such tempests more and more frequently today, given the planet’s growing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), as we discussed earlier in these pages.
I’ve been been through many disorienting dilemmas, those liminal spaces of upheaval that catalyze seismic shifts. Those forks in the road where you have to choose between different futures. When you have the chance to risk saying yes to what you know full well is a hazardous proposition.
What’s the difference between metamorphosis and transformation? What’s the difference between, on one hand, metamorphosis–when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly, or a nymph into a dragonfly–and, on the other hand, transformation?
Choice.
Insects have zero choice what to turn into. Each individual morphs into a more or less exact replica of every other individual of that species. They have no choice what to be when they grow up. They don’t choose whether to become a Monarch or a Viceroy. Left turns are simply not available to them as they are for us. We have this curse/blessing: we can transform into something unprecedented if we have the courage to go for it.
And it may not work out.
But you also know, as Anais Nin pointed out, how life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
You have, haven’t you?
If you’re like me, the choosing part is way tougher than either accepting or changing. I can do acceptance. I also do change well. No, the hard part is knowing which option to choose in this situation–this relationship, this job. There is no ready formula, no algorithm, no heuristic, no rule-of-thumb we can use for the tough choices in life. The Serenity Prayer offers no concrete answers– except you should pray for wisdom. You’re just going to have to make up your own mind and live with the consequences, whether good or bad, richer or poorer, whether it ends with the thrill of victory or the agony of failure.
Patanjali, on the other hand, does provide guidance, in the form of instruction in the path of Yoga. Whereas the Serenity Prayer provides instructions for contemplation when you’re already standing at the fork in the road, the practices Patanjali offers prepare us far in advance. Likewise, the techniques I’m offering you, albeit invaluable at the crossroads, are really meant to be practiced proactively in order to arrive at each and every moment prepared.
(excerpt from One Half-Breath At A Time, chapter 44, “Where Do You Catch The Bus For Tomorrow?”)