Serenity Prayer, Saving Money, and Control Issues

“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."

That’s the Serenity Prayer. It is perhaps most commonly associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, which has adopted the prayer for the purposes of its program. I won’t be discussing addiction today, but I do think very highly of the Serenity Prayer. It reminds one that many, if not most, things in this life are out of the scope of one’s control. For example, none of us can control the existence of rush hour traffic, or a line at the grocery store, or another person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. But we can accept, even begrudgingly, that we're in the traffic jam; we can breathe through our frustration and choose to wait patiently on line; and we can recognize others' autonomy. 

I’ll argue that much distress arises from what the very existence of the Serenity Prayer indicates; i.e., the human desire for control. We like to do, and to fix. Why? Well, because we are attached to other people, we are attached to expectations (our own and others’), and we are attached to outcomes. We get ideas about what "ought" or "ought not" be, and we take these as Capital-T Truth; we get fused to them, get married to them, and even give over our inherent power of thoughtful perspective to them. If we perceive a threat to what "ought to be," then, we tend to get worked up, and to seek a course of action.

Such attachments (and others) are universal conditions of human life. As such, the Serenity Prayer explicitly acknowledges the existence of impulses for control; but it invokes a re-calibration, so to speak, of one’s inner desire-to-control compass. It gives one hope that, with increased wisdom and clarity, one will be better-able to identify what is truly within and without the scope of one's control and influence; and when one has these realities in one's view, one is empowered to detach, as appropriate, from the impulse to control. And to reiterate: when people lose sight of what they can and can’t control, undue distress may ultimately follow.

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An illustration of this logic is money. I firmly believe that many of us have more control over our money situations than we perhaps would prefer to think we do. A commonly cited nugget of conventional wisdom is that one has to "have money to save money." Well, yes, this is partially true, in the sense that in the total absence of all money, one necessarily cannot save money. Now, please understand that what I’m about to describe doesn't apply to everyone; I’m speaking in particular to wage earners with a car or two, a house, some possessions, food on the table, etc. Many such wage earners are plagued by money problems, and with good reason: participation in modern life is very expensive. But that still does not mean one cannot save money.

Have you heard the principle, “Pay yourself first?” If not, it refers to a simple and effective money-saving strategy represented by what is essentially a mind game. Play along: Think of the bills you have to pay, and add another to the very top of that list – it’s your savings account. (If you don’t have one, you can open one for free, and with no minimum deposit requirement, with any number of banks.) In the “pay yourself first” system, you view saving money as being synonymous with paying a bill. Remember: you probably view bills as non-negotiable; i.e., you have to pay them. So why not give yourself and your financial security the same consideration? Listen, it can even be $5 a pay period to start with if that’s what you think you can do right now. The point is to engage the process and get in the habit: the results will follow.

I’ll bet many of you reading this are still skeptical. If so, here’s a real-world example of how it does, in fact, work: 401k plans (or any employer-sponsored retirement plan). You enroll in the plan, and a retirement account is set up. Concurrently, you determine a percentage of your gross pay to contribute to the plan; that amount is then automatically deducted from your wages. It never enters your cash flow, and you never see it in your paycheck. The amount left over is what you have to work with to pay bills, buy groceries, and put gas in your car. Amazingly, awesomely, as time passes, those deductions accumulate. Paying yourself first works the same exact way.

We are emotional creatures. We are highly fallible, impulsive, and prone to misjudgment. And we are prone to misjudgment about our purchases and cash flow management behaviors, and whether we do actually have money in our paychecks to set aside. My guess is that if you’re reading this, there are hidden expenses in your life you aren’t even aware of: things you could do without and really not even have to sacrifice too much by going without. Money represents an agreement, or an idea. It is governed by numbers and arithmetic and logic, all of which are decidedly a-emotional. Paying yourself first -- an inherently automatic, logic-driven process that falls outside the day-to-day scope of fallible decision-making -- is an emotionless process. It leverages the systems that govern financial processes. And it works as a savings strategy. I promise.

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We sometimes mistake our subjective, often-faulty perceptions for an objective, absolute reality. We sometimes reach conclusions that don’t tell the whole story; but we decide or assume they do. Sometimes, we can’t see a way out of something; and instead of seeking to learn about new, as-yet unknown ways forward, we decide that our limited perception is reality, and that if “I can’t see a way out now, there must not be a way out.” We have more power than this. We all have a genius within us; and the Serenity Prayer -- and other grounding tools like it -- can help us tap into that genius. 

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes:

"You will be much more in control if you realize how much you are not in control." -- Antonio Damasio