what it is that i fear the most some days? terrorism, the avian flu, global warming, creeping totalitarianism or natural disasters? no really all of those may or may not be a part of life on life‘s terms. some days my greatest fear is that the changes wrought by my progress along the road of recovery will produce a person who i do not really like. truthfully, this fear is among the most irrational of everything i could fear. the evidence is that my new life and the person i am becoming are things that i am grateful for. but still in the back of my head i remember how i never wanted to be a staid, productive member of society, i wanted to be a force for change and not just anonymous drone in an ever-increasingly materialistic consumer society. not that recovery has be dragging me towards that stodgy existence, but sometimes i see the outside trappings of my life and think i have become them. when i get thinking like that i need readings like the this morning. and the truth actually is that before i came to recovery i lived in conflict with my dream to be a force for change. i consumed, i let myself be controlled by popular culture and i did my best to keep a very low profile. even though i had none of the trappings of success, i had become my greatest fear.
since coming to recovery, i really have become a force for change. today i do have a positive effect on the world that i live in, today i possess the tools and the desire to make other people‘s lives better. today i can create instead of destroy. and today i attempt to look beyond the profane materialistic world and glimpse the divine.
rethinking that fear, i can now see how irrational it really is. i live in a whole new world, as an emerging new person and i am content that i am learning to finally be that rebel i so wanted to be. rebellion need not be violent nor destructive. the program that saved my life has created a revolution, showing me the way to affect change without tearing apart the existing structure -- and i am satisfied that this is really the path i have been seeking for some time.
cool -- i can move on to some real fears -- avian flu coming to neighborhood near me soon!
∞ DT ∞