Have you ever noticed that one of the key tenets of the Stoics is essentially the Serenity Prayer?
The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.
— Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
One need not be a theist to pray. That may be counterintuitive, but the exercise of putting thoughts into a concrete, coherent form has enormous value. There is an inner self that is always aware. And, just in case you’re wrong about theism, it can’t hurt.
Excellent point. Or, as the Steve Miller song exhorts, ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up and look A-round you’ and go ahead and assume you are communicating with the Creator.