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HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE Serenity Prayer? It goes like this: “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.” There's a message in there for catalogers. The key is to have the wisdom to know what you can or can't change.

There are lots of things in life over which you may have little or no control. The sureness of death and taxes, for example. But unlike death and taxes, those in the mailing business actually can exercise substantial control over the postal issues that shape their business's future.

Many, however, suffer from the Scarlett O'Hara Syndrome. Talk about postal, and they'll quickly want to put it off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, of course, never comes.

Instead of taking responsibility, they shirk. “I don't get involved with postal matters because my [fill in the blank] takes care of that for me” is a response heard often enough.

Yes, success in business requires sharp strategic thinking. But believe it or not, such success isn't determined solely by tactical thinking, one quarter at a time. It's time to take off the blinders and get a quick schooling on what the U.S. Postal Service has proposed in the R2006 rate case, because its many aspects are sure to shape your enterprise's fiscal vitality.

You also really ought to take a look at some of the stuff proposed by the USPS and a number of others in testimony filed with the Postal Rate Commission. If approved, a lot of it can (and undoubtedly will) send a number of businesses to the poorhouse.

Don't believe it? Then just check out what the postal service has in store for companies that use larger-than-letter-size mail pieces. If you can live with 40% to 80% postal rate increases, forget everything I've said thus far. But if you can't, it's time to start taking a hand in shaping your firm's postal future.

The choice is simple. Get off your duff and get involved, or suffer a postal mugging…and give yourself about a minute to get used to it.

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GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.