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i can use the steps, as well as the spiritual principles i have been taught, to improve my negative attitude. quite honestly, there are days when i could swear i was born a cynical pessimist. in active addiction, nothing was never good enough, shiny enough or fast enough to suit my taste. early recovery was much worse, as now i had lost the only tool that could shut down my perpetual discontent for the few brief moments i peered into the pit. did i forget to mention who bore the brunt of this constant barrage of negativity? well i will give you three guesses and the first two do not count. of course it was me, but when i went there, i was quick to blame everything and everyone else. that, however is a tale for a different day, this morning i am looking at fixing my attitudes in the here and now.
i still can drift into that whole cynical pessimist attitude in what seems to be 1 microsecond, old habits die hard, as that old cliché goes. does that mean i doomed to be the man i came to recovery as? well, that question is certainly one for discussion. the argument that i offer is that while i certainly can appear to look like that person physically, and i can certainly act like that person spiritually, i offer that there has been such a dramatic paradigm shift within, that i am no longer that person. the cynic, while still within has been tempered by my journey through the recovery process. when that part of me, gets activated, i can run with it, as i often do, OR i can be present for what is going on, use a spot inventory to find out what the root cause of my discontent happens to be, and address the real issue. i can tell you this, the world is a much happier place when i stop. pause and allow myself to see what is really going on. okay, before i get accused of being something i am not, there is a lot of foul sh!t that happens each and every day. people die, volcanoes erupt, and so on. i have not come this far, to believe that those are tests of my FAITH, nor some sort of cosmic joke upon me. that is just life on life's terms. dad things happen to everyone, probably just about every day, i can cry and wail about that and allow those events to shape my attitudes, or i can accept them as reality and move on. i call you attention to this last statement; acceptance is not the same as spinning events in a positive light to fit a certain world view. i have not become some sort of Pollyanna two shoes, who sees the world through rose colored glasses. BUT, i am no longer Oscar the grouch, who cannot see the good in everyday life because i am so blinded by the slights i have to suffer. i have become something more than either of those caricatures, and of that i am proud today. it is only because i have applied myself to the process of recovery and allowed that process to make deep, fundamental changes within, that i have reached this point. my pride goes to the effort and not the result. i was amazed when i heard an addict share the other night that she happened to be working on five different programs to recover. as i had other things on my mind, that evening as well as the next morning, i have only now come to the place where i can express gratitude that i only NEED one program of recovery, and everything i do to better myself falls under its auspices. today when i discover myself plagued by negative attitude, i have a solution for living in a different manner. the truly amazing part is, that because poof this recovery journey, i seldom find the cynical pessimist being present.
so although i could prattle on about how this has changed and how that change is manifest in my life, i think i will dress warmly and go hit the streets. yes it is farging chilly out there this morning, but it is above my minimum temperature threshold, so any excuses are just lies to keep me from doing the next right thing, which this morning happens to be a good long run. so off to the trenches i go, with a spring in my step and you know what a smile on my lips, because after all is said and done, it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞