Blog entry for:

... finding out anything about them. every time i judge the behavior of another, i cease to see them as potential friends and fellow travelers on the road to recovery.
well before i launch into this topic, i need to vent about how frustrating the last two days have been. especially this morning. i feel like i am battling against life the universe and everything, when all i am trying to do is move one website from a hosting server that has become unreliable to a new one. at the same time i am moving 23 GB of data from one host to another, and neither of these tasks is going as well as i planned. stopping the activity is not an option, both of these need to be done, so here i sit, figuratively waiting for the paint to dry, working on my taxes for the last year and wondering when oh when these things will get done. so i am going to take a breath, close my eyes, and try to let go of any outcomes.
better now
okay into the fray.
judging others and quickly stereotyping them was a survival skill when i was in active addiction. after all, the places i found myself were inherently dangerous and for my own protection, i had to be able to figure if a exit strategy was going to be called for, and if so, what it was going to be. it is a trait that i have carried into recovery, and one of those shortcomings that seem quite long in being removed. perhaps i am looking at the wrong result and not what is actually happening. judgment calls are part of human life, that is the sane and healthy part of this trait. after all, i have to be able to make decisions based on what i perceive about someone very quickly when it comes to business, driving around town or dealing with sales and support representatives. it is probably not a bad idea to carry that aspect into the rooms with me, after all, i am still dealing with people, and humans, regardless of whether or not they are in recovery have mixed motives at best. the sick part is not in doing the judgment, rather it is using that judgment to stereotype another person, before i get a chance to actually know them. and returning to my earlier thought, this process goes to full completion rarely these days. it does still happen, so the end result of having this removed has yet to occur. so right here and now, i could beat myself up for it happening at all, or i can look at the positive aspect, that the process is stopped short of completion most of the time. progress not perfection. that does not mean i do not need to continue to humbly ask, it just means that i have to accept that the process of this being removed is occurring and i am getting a bit better every day. and looking at myself a bit more positively, allows me to look at others through the same lenses. so i am getting better and the day will come when i no longer turn first impression judgments into stereotypes and act accordingly. it is after all just a process.

∞ DT ∞