Danny ChaiI’ve come to realize in the last few years that I can’t change people. This is a big thing for me. I kind of have a savior complex. When I see someone with a problem, my natural inclination is to fix it, fix them. But I see now that I can’t change people. Nor is that really the point, I think.
I can only change me. I can hope someone else will change, but depending on that is doomed. All I can do is control what’s in my own sphere, my own behavior. So if I ever want situations to change, the only thing I can do is change myself.
Another thing that’s changed is, and this is embarrassing, but true; oftentimes when I heard sermons, or got lessons from Scripture or books or whatever, I’d find myself applying them to other people rather than to myself. Pretty sucky. My dad wrote something a while back (10/24/2004) about how if we want to grow, we have to expect God to speak to us every sermon, so every week we need to figure out and reflect on the lesson God has for us personally. Figuring out how everything applies to me personally has been a great help.
I’ve said before how I sympathize a lot with Stoicism, the Serenity prayer and all that. I think this is just another application of it. Learning what I can and cannot change, and dealing with both accordingly.