In 1934 the American theologian Karl Reinhold Niebuhr, began to end his sermons with a short prayer: 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 'The Serenity Prayer' was taken up in particular by Alcoholics Anonymous but as far back as the 1stc. AD, the Greek stoic, Epictitus was advocating the necessity for acceptance, for an acknowledgement that we will be far happier working wi