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well i can hear the rationalization and justifications rolling through my head right now, about how practicing does not mean perfecting, and since i am **only** practicing, if i am dishonest,** oh well tomorrow is another day!** it falls right in there with “after all i am only human,” and ”i am an addict, what did you expect?“ that repertoire of lies, is part of the plethora of roadblocks i put in the path of becoming something more. ah yes, calling the truth a lie may seem a bit disingenuous, after all i am a human being and addict and prone to fall way short of any sort of perfection in any of my endeavors. owning those facts and using them to boost my esteem, are two entirely different notions. i spent decades hiding what i was in plain sight, and got away with it. today, no matter how attractive the idea may seem, throwing myself under the bus of rationalizations, instead of owning up to them. yes boosting my self-esteem by dismissing or diminishing my “practices” only set me back. in this case practicing the honesty that i FAILED to live up to my aspirations, is THE healthy choice.
the reading was about honesty in living life and not necessarily about the level of self-honesty i NEED to achieve to be okay with being who i am. part of learning to “practice” is to own up to who i am. if i am going around trying to carve out my little piece of the fellowship by dissing those of whom i am envious, jealous or afraid of, am i really even practicing at all. if i need to boost my esteem and my standing in my own eyes, by preying on the newest and most fragile, with a full line of empty compliments and empty actions calculated to ingratiate them to me, how much honesty am i really practicing? ah that is where, at least for me, those wonderful lies come into play, now, busted by conscience or the keen eye of my sponsor or closed-mouth friend, i have a choice to make. i can continue and respond by pulling the lies out of my bag of tricks, or i can stop, own what i am doing and talk to someone i trust to provide me the guidance i need to return to a path that builds my self-esteem and leave the one that buries it under the smoke and mirrors of rationalizations. it is not true, that: “everyone lies, ” or “everyone needs at least rationalization to get through their day.”
which of course brings me back to the top. what is “practicing honesty,” in my mind? well it means all of the above. IF i am using the story-lines that i used in active addiction to boost my image, than i am not participant honesty. if i settle for less than a 100% program, i am not practicing honesty. if at the end of my day, i find that there were points when i chose to lie, steal or cheat, then i NEED to own that and admit i was wrong and clean-up the damage i did.
today i am better than that, i have a path to becoming the person i never thought i could be, and living a program. what others may or may not think about me, need not be my overarching concern. today i am clean and today i CHOOSE to be better than i was yesterday, honestly and without conditions.

∞ DT ∞