Serenity – Day 3

I was standing in line to pay my bill at a restaurant. The woman in line ahead of me wrote out a check to pay her bill, then handed the cashier her driver’s license. The cashier looked at the license.

“Is everything current?” she asked the woman.

The woman sighed. “For twenty-two years,” she said. She turned to me and added, “I’m so boring.”

That’s not serenity. It’s boredom. And there’s a difference.

Serenity doesn’t mean we stick our head in the sand, don’t interact with life, or don’t feel our legitimate emotions. Serenity is a deliberate decision to practice a calm, serene attitude, despite our problems and emotions.

Challenge: The most difficult part about practicing serenity can be getting past our fear that we’ll sink into a life of boredom if we’re not churning with drama. Even if the problem is real and not self-created, sustained turmoil doesn’t help. Urgency and panic feed on themselves, and they can make us feel like the correct response is to become more urgent, more panicked. Turmoil can actually block or delay solving the problem. Or it can keep us from identifying and solving our real problem, such as why we’re so bored with our lives.

Serenity isn’t boring. Drama addiction is. We can create a fulfilling life without creating a crisis.

From the book: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact

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