It's National Poetry Day, so I thought I'd share something a bit different.
This one is from my second book, Fragments. It's number 86 of the 108 fragments in it, and it's called "Able".
Give me acceptance
The ability to let go
Of all the many things
I could never control
But also give me courage
To do everything I can
No matter how hard it might be
So I can be a better man
Most of all give me the ability
To recognise what I can or cannot do
Teach me when to give my all
Or when to seek something new
Where it comes from
If it sounds familiar, there's a reason. It's my own take on a very old idea. Accept the things you can't change. Find the courage to change the things you can. And try to be wise enough to know which is which.
It's an idea I come back to a lot. In hard years and in good years, and on ordinary days when something small has wound me up more than it should.
Writing it down in my own words helped me in a way that just reading it never did. When you have to choose every word, you have to work out what you actually believe.
The bit I find hardest
For me the hardest line is the last one. Knowing when to give my all, and when to seek something new.
Acceptance on its own can turn into giving up. Courage on its own can turn into banging your head against a wall for years. The skill is telling the difference, and I don't always get it right.
You see it in business too. One owner pours everything into a product the market has clearly said no to. Another walks away from a good idea a few weeks before it would have worked.
The poem doesn't give an answer to that, and I don't think there is a neat one. What helps me is slowing down long enough to ask the question. Is this mine to fix, or mine to accept? Most of the time I already know. I just haven't stopped to ask.
The things you can't control are a long list. The economy, the weather, what a competitor does, how someone else reacts. The things you can control are shorter and much more useful. What you do next. How you respond. Who you ask for help. Where you put your time this week.
