The Serenity Principle

People struggling to achieve serenity are like people trying to “find themselves” – they were never lost! Few people realize that serenity is already theirs. It is not something you “find,” “achieve,” “discover,” “learn,” or “acquire.” Serenity is your natural state of being. To be outside of this state is unnatural and artificial. You were born with serenity, free of stress and care, at peace with yourself and the world around you. Have you ever seen a baby get stressed? Ever seen a baby with an anxiety disorder? Low self-esteem? Depression? Babies only cry or fuss when they are tired or hurt or hungry, it helps them get their needs met. Otherwise they are perfectly at peace, in a blissful state of continuous serenity.

       It is only as we get older and are socialized (a term meaning “filled with the norms [rules/beliefs] of society, our caretakers and acquaintances.”) that we learn how to be out of harmony, give up our serenity, and learn to dislike ourselves.  We learn an impossible series of “shoulds,” rules, guilt, standards, expectations, and the like, which are constantly in conflict with one another. In failing to be able to meet all these standards we feel as if we have failed, as if there is something wrong with us, and we are constantly on the lookout for things we may be doing wrong, or not doing, or not being that would make us less than perfect – therefore, bad. This is the source of most stress and our lack of serenity, and surprisingly, it is all self-inflicted!

You may have been “given” these standards to start with, but can you honestly say you have gone back and carefully evaluated them? Do they still fit? Do they still work? Are they helping or hurting you? Should you remove some or add others? It is surprising that people are so firm in their belief systems, and yet, they did not “install” them, have not examined them, and with very few exceptions, have not changed many of them in all these many passing years.

The first key to serenity is to take control of yourself and your life. You must put yourself in charge of your own standards and life direction. In essence, you must begin the process of “inventing yourself.” There is no such thing as “human-nature,” a person can be anything and any way that they desire to be strongly enough. The people who whip out the excuse “that’s just the way I am,” are the ones who have given up on improving themselves and ever growing in a positive direction. The clinical term for this is “Learned Helplessness,” the layman’s term for this is “Lazy.”