Blog entry for:

and sometimes it hurts, ouch, get over it and move on.
over the course of my recovery, i have often felt very much like JOB, where seemingly one event after another provided some sort of cosmic test or temptation and when i resisted, unlike JOB, i expected a reward, minimally at least a pat on the back and a “way yo go, bro.” that belief put me in all sorts of incredulous positions and in the end run, nearly took me out more than once. after all, when i did not get what i thought i was due, or no one recognized the greatest i had just achieved, i got angry, resentful and ready to pick-up all my marbles and go home in a petulant frenzy. yes i am not now, nor have i ever been the most spiritual kid on the block, although more than once in my recovery, i certainly have believed i was, humility is a very ironic sort of thing and as one of the men i sponsor has often said, when i say i am being humble, most of the time i am not!
as i stay clean, this whole notion of being tested, whether it is my FAITH; my resolve to remain a member of the No Matter What Club; or my personal relationship with the POWER that fuels my recovery, i have come to see that i am not really all that important in the scheme of everything. when i feel that i am being tested, “tested” i have moved from any sort of humility into conceit and ego, puffing myself up at the expense of others. do not get me wrong, i am speaking of only myself here. why my peers may or may not believe that they are being tested is an entirely different topic. sure i could project my motives on to them, and that may be true, but what in doing that i minimize their experience as human beings and their recovery.
when i hear those who have been “around” rooms for a while wondering about how they keep failing the “test” of staying clean, i have to wonder, what it is they are really trying to say. when i stop there, before i go down the path of judgement and casting motives, i remain in a spiritual place. when i start trying to figure out why they lost HOPE or what their reservations are, then i am putting them into a bucket where they do not belong, maybe, just maybe, they have yet to find what we are freely giving away, and it is not the answers to life's tests. i believe these days that i CAN stay clean, regardless of what happens in my daily life. whether or not i am enthralled with the series of events that comprise my day, or angry at what happened, it all comes down to what i am willing to do, to foster my spiritual growth.oh i can whine about how tough life is for me, and how nothing ever works out as planned, and that i am constantly being tested by the slings and arrows of existence. or i can simple accept that is the case for everyone that is walking on this side of the lawn and apply a bit of HOPE, that it may not ALWAYS be like this. using the terms NEVER and ALWAYS creates traps that i often will not escape clean. when i drop any expectations of what i am “owed” from recovery, life, my peers or my friends and family, i get to live life without feeling i am being “tested.”
anyhow, my employer does expect me to work and i am not doing all that much work for them, while i am musing about the “tests” of life, or any resemblance thereof, therefore i will wrap this up with a line from the reading THIS IS NOT A TEST!

∞ DT ∞