Astonishing the amount of insight that can be amassed from a box of Yogi ginger tea.
“The art of happiness is to serve all.”
“Trust creates peace.”
“Your life is based on the capacity of energy in you, not outside of you.”
“Obey, serve, love, excel.”
“Chances multiply if you grab them.”
“You only give when you love.”
“The best way of life is to simply be.”
God, teach me to apply what I’ve learned, not just store it uselessly in my head…
“A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke… We did the exact same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced of self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.” –Alcoholics Anonymous, p.64.
Gee, I’m glad I didn’t listen to the guy who ran the Beverly Farms meeting years ago when he stood up from his seat in a fit of rage after I mentioned inventory and the above passage and constructed the following bit of eloquence, give or take. “Listen, I run a friggin’ business and lemme tell you, no friggin’ God and no friggin’ spiritual Big Book step bullshit keeps me sobah! It’s this friggin’ meetin’ and you friggin’ guys that keeps me sobah!”
Um, I know AA is self-governing but I have a hunch that’s not the best advice.
“Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have not only been mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.” – Ibid., also p.64.
And the above is why I don’t go to meetings. Why add to the already steady accumulation of resentments? Plus, it was Alcoholics Anonymous that saved my life, a program which bears little to no resemblance to what takes place in some of these meetings.
Home Depot Inventory
1st Column (Who): Moron at Home Depot
2nd Column (Cause): a) Never cut my carpet after I ordered it, then forgot and sold the last of it to someone else.
3rd Column (Affects my…): Pride/Ambition, Self-Esteem, Wallet,
4th Column (My Mistakes):
Self-Seeking: I am the man. No one messes with me.
Selfish: I want my carpet when I want my carpet.
Dishonest: I make, and want to be forgiven for, my own human errors yet judge everybody else for theirs. (i.e. I know it wasn’t intentional.)
Fear: I’m afraid to let go. I fear looking bad to our new tenants.
God, forgive me for my sins, for being unloving and verbally abusive, for being intolerant and judgmental, for not forgiving and giving others the benefit of the doubt. Help me to see my character flaws, that I may rid myself of them and replace them instead with Your principles…
Who really gets us better?
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch
Alcoholics and drug addicts lack internal authority.
And yes, I screw up all the time. The trick is not to do so intentionally, but either way, we must see our wrong and then go make it right. That’s why we write inventory – to identify our wrongs. That’s why we pray for willingness, for the power to then go and make them right. If we cannot or if we refuse to correct our wrongs, to become accountable and attempt to relieve those we hurt, we will never recover from anything. Doctors and counselors will tell you that you relapsed because you were triggered.
Wrong!
We relapse because we are doing the wrong thing, coupled with our refusal to grow up and act like an adult, to be a good person, and to do the right thing. Moral action and God alone can remove the mental obsession. Science cannot. It has never been able to. Goodness and spiritual fitness cannot be injected – they must be earned through hard work, right action, and Grace.