The Wisdom to Know the Difference

First and foremost, let me wish a happy, healthy and prosperous 2022 to all our readers. We’ve somehow managed to make it around the sun one more time. 2021 had more than its fair share of crises and disappointments, but if you were in the plumbing and heating business, odds are you had a good year.

2022 looks to be another good year, although maybe not as strong as 2021. We try to read the tea leaves in our annual economic forecast. The leading indicators present something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, slowing GDP growth, worries about inflation, and continued difficulties finding skilled workers. On the other hand, the supply chain seems to be working through its problems, material prices are returning to the mean, and there looks to be a big raft of federal money in the pipeline thanks to the passing of the infrastructure deal.

But of course, looming over everything—as it did last year and the year before—is the pandemic. As I type this, US hospitalizations due to COVID have once again topped six figures and are expected to rise as the new omicron variant sweeps the country. The variant, while fast-spreading, does not seem to create as severe a level of illness. And, luckily, vaccines and booster shots—which have now been available for more than a year—offer protection against the disease and seem to reduce the severity of symptoms.

(And yes, I know some people are saying, “If you can still catch COVID, why bother to get the vaccine?” Well, you can still die in a car crash even if you’re wearing your seat belt—but you better your chances if you buckle up.)

However, as we enter our third year of the pandemic, with more than 850,000 deaths in the US, with a return to normalcy seeming almost as distant as it did a year ago, a lot of people are in despair. This is going to sound corny, but when I get to feeling that way, I take a deep breath and recite (sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud) the Serenity Prayer:

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.

Little bit of trivia, the Serenity Prayer was written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. In his original version he puts courage first:

Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.

I’m not too religious a person, but the thing that appeals to me about the prayer—that I think appeals to most people—is its practicality. The idea of putting your focus, your mental effort, into what you can actually accomplish, instead of wasting it on things beyond your control.

That attitude is a hallmark of our 2022 Contractor of the Year, GSM Services. After the tragic loss of two team members in a mass shooting, the company re-committed itself to serving its employees and its customers.

“For instance, we cannot control the CDC guidelines and the constant external political chatter about COVID,” says Joel Long, co-owner of GSM. “We can control our positive focus on our caring about our customers and coworkers and how we keep them safe.”

Even when they don’t have good solutions to some of the difficult situations their team members are experiencing—even when there are no solutions to be had—management at GSM makes a point of listening, because simply being heard can actually be a help.

It’s an attitude I think we all could borrow to get us through the tough times—whenever those times show up—and into the better days that lie ahead.