Live by the following words and everything else will follow. Change the things you can change and accept the things you cannot change. Of course with this we also need the wisdom to see which things to change and which ones to accept that we can do nothing about.
Acceptance of the things you cannot change will empower you in many different ways. No time will be wasted by fighting battles which cannot be won. You will regain the power of laughter. As you relinquish a bit of control so does your sense of humor find a way back in your life.
I have a friend who is self employed. She has many ways that she employs to generate an income. One of the ways is a small company where she places vending machines at different offices. One day last week she found out that a major company that supplies all her crisps had burnt down. So no crisps for a while and loss of income for a while. The same day she found out that a major labor group were lobbying to end cheap imports from China. This came a week after she had received sole distributorship for her area to sell kitchen gadgets imported from China. I expected her to fall apart. Instead she called me laughing that she could not believe that so many things could go wrong and was looking forward to finding out what would be next as all bad news come in threes. What she chose to do after that was to source out some more office blocks who would be willing to house a few more of her vending machines and she received three very good leads that same afternoon. And her saying to me was "the lord taketh away and the lord giveth". That is a prime example of accepting the things you cannot change and dealing with the things you can.
Another way through which acceptance can help you to improve your life is to make excuses for people. Early morning and you encounter a fellow driver who seems to be experiencing some form of road rage by either driving very fast or trying to antagonize you by driving too close, instead of getting angry and fuelling his anger further imagine that perhaps he has just found out that there are layoffs at his place of work or there is trouble with his family. By accepting that your life is going quite well and realizing that some other people might be having more trouble, you prevent yourself from entering a situation which might have bad repercussions. Do not underestimate the power of empathy.
There are many more ways to improve your personal life and the trick is to start with the small things which you can change. By changing your attitude and modifying your reaction to certain situations will definitely help you achieve a more peaceful mind within the chaos we face daily in our lives.
The web is a wonderful source of ideas and information on self improvement. When we read on what other people are experiencing in their daily lives we can acquire a sense of how blessed we truly are.
