For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
— W.W. Bartley

Life piles on some days. Some things demand our full attention. Mostly though, we choose what to burden ourselves with and what to release from our shoulders. Developing a mind focused on what we can control is the path to some measure of serenity in a chaotic world.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer

I’m not the first to associate the Bartley poem with the Niebuhr sermon—you can find it right on Wikipedia if you like. I share them both here because they dance well together, and who doesn’t love a beautiful dance? Both offer timeless wisdom, yet each originated within the last hundred years.

It helps to find something that will remind us that we must pause and assess all that washes over us, if only for a beat, and choose how to react. Some things we must endure. Some things we can work to change. But there are some things that we should never mind at all, for they aren’t ours to carry.