Blog entry for:

some far-off island where i am not **supposed to** do anything! let me get this straight, because i made the choice to finally get clean a few days ago, and worked to achieve my dreams. among which is to set myself up for a comfortable life, i can be overwhelmed by the feeling of responsibility that maintaining that entails. yeah that certainly the case, but it also reads like a very first world problem to me. all of those responsibilities are a direct consequence of me making the decision to stay clean, and repeat that decision day after day.
whenever i hear i am “suppose to” i rebel, that is just part of who i am. i want all the gifts that a job, savings, emotional stability, social connections and clarity of mind, can bring, BUT i do not want to do any of the work and when forced into a corner i will most of the time say “fVck off, i will do what i like!” i never intimated that i was any sort of spiritual giant, although i have tried to act the part of one, every now and again. of course the so-called spiritual answer is to do this transformation “suppose to” ✷ “get to.” the magical deliciousness of such a transformation reminds me of the Alka-Seltzer commercials in the past and eerily like using, after all, relief is just a swallow away. a semantic trick of the tongue and everything is okay, BOOM, just like that. that may work for others, for me, i need to root around a bit more and get to what the cause may actually be. i get that perspective is the first hurdle that i need to clear. i also get that it has been my choices that created all the responsibilities i find myself “burdened” with. knowing all of that, what do i often find is the root of my discontent?
for me., it seems expectations are the root of all evil. in some spiritual circles it is often said that: “the cause of suffering is desire.” personalizing that to me, it would transforms into expectations, especially unrealistic ones are the cause of my suffering. expectations, at least in this respect is simply desire with a fantasy twist added in. so digging through the layers of justifications and rationalizations i place around what is really going on, is a Sisyphean task, as there are always more, and most of the time, those expectations are created by the sense of entitlement i have been taught and yes cultured into accepting as my own. do i always need more? society and mass-media says yes and addiction takes that notion and runs with it, disguising it as ambition and goal-setting. do i always have to have the latest and greatest? the part of me i call addiction, says yes, after all you have to show everyone what i think i am worth. the game goes on. everything good, can be corrupted by addiction and used against in the court of law, that resides between my brain. in that kangaroo court, the outcome is already set, guilty as charged and off his his head, your honor! in the end, there is no way for me to escape this treadmill of expectations and the cynic within, says why even bother?
i bother, because the program of recovery i CHOOSE to live, offers me a foil to addiction and the means to cut dissipate the fog of war, that goes on in my head. when i stop fighting addiction, that fog starts to clear. when i live by the principles of the program, my values emerge. when my values emerge, i see that entitlement and desire go hand in hand, and i am offered a path out. sure i will always be a lustful, desire-driven creature, BUT recovery offers me a way to become less so, on most days. the greatest responsibility i have is my recovery and just for today, i accept that and am getting headed over to my home group for its weekly meeting. after all, that i what this is all about, staying clean another day and allowing the transformation to occur.

∞ DT ∞