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ฮผ a challenge is anything that dares me to succeed. things new and unfamiliar serve as challenges, whether those โ€ฆ

Posted: Tue, May 27, 2008 09:24:27 AM

things appear good or bad to me. new and difficult things, obstacles and opposition, all are a part of **life on its own terms.** so i noticed this morning that i have been at this for four years now, which is amazing, because in active addiction i would have long ago given up a daily writing exercise. how does that relate to life’s challenges? well i wrote this little piece of web application as a challenge to myself to see if i could do it. yes there are lots of things i did wrong way back then, and little peeves and annoyances that i might fix, if i ever get around to it.
well enough of patting myself on thew back, and wondering how i got here. the truth is the how is important, it is the why that is irrelevant. how did i get here? well for one thing i did not use. then lost dreams were awakened and i returned to school at the age of 43. i started part-time at community college, and after earning an associates degree proceeded to a four year university full time, and continued to work 30 hours a week. nothing amazing there, just a drive to be more than i was, and i have become more than i ever thought was possible. all through that phase in my life, i also stayed clean, went to meetings, met with my sponsor when he was available, and did step work, and here i am four years later, still writing my daily missive to the cyberworld. no congratulations are in order, what is appropriate is looking at the fact that i can meet a challenge, and actually succeed.
it was an interesting reading for me on another level, because there were parts of it i heard for what seemed the first time. like the list of reasons i may or, may not have used as excuses to get high. looking at that lest from the vantage point of a few days clean, sort of trips off old memories that are hardly euphoric recall. instead of remembering how wonderful my life was, back in the **day,** what is driven home is the memories of what a fear ridden and isolated creature i had become, and was willing to be. i am certainly grateful that i no longer need to be that creature, and while fear is still present in my life, especially the whole fear of failure -- fear of success seesaw, its power over me and my behaviors has been diminished. i am not the man i once was, and i am not the man i am going to be, but today, right here and right now i am the man who i am, and i can accept that man as doing the best he can to face life as it comes at him today.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 2

3) He who gets as his own all under heaven does so by giving himself
no trouble (with that end). If one take trouble (with that end), he
is not equal to getting as his own all under heaven.