The Serenity Prayer.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

This is called The Serenity Prayer, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1934. One of the more interesting things about this is how was it that nobody came up with this before 1934?
Another thing I find interesting is that if looked at closely it seems to have two sections, the first is an attitude, the second is about action.
"God, grant us the grace to accept with serenity", you could stop there. God simply grants you serenity, sounds like a good deal, story over. The second part seems to be a recipe for getting that serenity, despite it being explicitly asked for as a gift of grace from God. Accept what you cannot change (in buddhism, the source of pain is wishing things to be different than they are, so in that tradition one simply accepts) is simply common sense. However, it requires the ability of the last clause, being able to tell what you can or cannot change. The final clause for me to look at is "The courage to change the things that should be changed." Here is the rub, what should be changed? It depends on how much serenity you have, how much acceptance you have, and then how much courage you have in order to be able to change things, and then the same qualities for everyone else in the world. An example of the interconnected nature of reality.

Basically it is a request to be serene, wise, and courageous. Which are good qualities, but as with almost everything in life, the specifics of how to be these things are extremely complex.

The reason that I thought of this is the present situation in Georgia, in light of the ongoing idiocy in Iraq. I wish to be serene, and if there is a god and he makes me serene that would be great. Given what I think of the chances of that happening I must move on to the rest of the prayer. I think people in Georgia, russian, georgian, ossetian or whatever should not kill each other. But can I change that in any way? Perhaps if I dedicated myself and my life to stopping conflict, perhaps by chaining myself in the path of tanks in Georgia I might make a difference. That would take enormous amounts of courage, and would probably make zero difference, but it might make a huge difference just as Gandhi demonstrated. So, I should either serenely accept the situation and do nothing, or I should be outraged and do everything.
Perhaps the serenity prayer could be summed up with the following, "When it comes to life, shit or get off the pot." The worst thing you can do is care deeply about something so that it eats at you, but not be able to do anything about it. So, here's your question, are you going to do something about it, or are you going to be serene? Because if you aren't picking one or the other, you are screwing up.