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...of the utmost importance to everyone. i practiced a lifetime of self-seeking, self-centered behavior and believed it was the only way to live. after all, if i did not take care of numero uno, by making my needs wants and desires well known and insist on having them who would? nobody, that is who! little did i realize, that i was not entitled to having the world and everyone on it, serve my every whim, at the instant it became known to me.
am i better than that today? i certainly would like to think so, but honestly, i am coming to believe that i am incapable of knowing the difference between self-obsession and self-interest. so exactly where is the HOPE in that statement? well, on the surface, there is not a whole lot of HOPE there. so i better get into what i really mean, and not some sort of false humility gig.
self-interest, is a normal, human activity, that has been hard-wired in us through the millennia of crawling down from the trees. for those of you who may be uncomfortable with the whole evolution gig, interpret that to say, it is the way GOD made the human species. it’s function is to provide for the continuation of the species through all of the cooperative and not so cooperative venture in which we engage. not a bad thing and one that in the so-called normal world leads to as much strife as it does to the advancement of our species. normal people, as they grow from childhood seem to rise above warping self-interest into self-obsession and move on, somewhere along the way, i missed that event or process and in my active addiction polished my obsession with self, into a beautiful nugget of behavior, that i was loathe to let go of. it would be wonderful for me to state flat out, that not only have i let go of my obsession with self, that it has also been removed, totally and completely as a result of practicing active recovery. that would be at best disingenuous and at worst a bald face lie. what has happened, however, that more and more i find myself less and less obsessed with self. i am learning how to listen, i am learning how to balance the needs of others against my wants, desires and needs. and most importantly i am learning that the world does not center around me. i may have some excellent ideas, passions and thoughts, but i NEED to allow others to take them and run with them, change them and finally implement them, if i am to truly let go of self-obsession.
so where does that leave me? well, my feelings, my desires, my wants are important, to me, and perhaps to those whom i love. they are not, however, the center of the universe, for everyone to jump to and fulfill, right now. i understand this intellectually, and more and more, emotionally and spiritually on a daily basis. i can get better, i can learn to live with a minimum of self-obsession and i can learn to accept that self-interest is not the same thing as self-obsession. most of all, i can grow the FAITH necessary to let the POWER THAT KEEPS ME CLEAN, fill my needs on a daily basis. life is goo today, and i am getting better, so off to hit the streets and take off a few more calories, after all you can never be…

∞ DT ∞