α the lie of self-sufficiency α
Posted: Mon, Feb 6, 2006 05:46:48 AM
thinking about how self-sufficient i was when i came to recovery, i wonder how i ever survived my active addiction. it is true that i believed that i was self-sufficient and would argue the point with fervor, after all everything in the world was set-up to meet my needs.
what stuck out the most in the reading this morning for me was my dependency on the modern world to provide the comforts of life like; heat, coffee, food, the world-wide web, cigars , music and fuel for my car. i would be sorely pressed to provide any of that for myself, so discovering how to exist in harmony with me community needed to become part of my early recovery and continues to this day. i often rail against post-modern life in this country, complaining about how crowded, rude, and intrusive life has become, ignoring the benefits that i recieve daily from this society. i am not really entitled to any of these things, and they are really a gift that comes from the random chance of me being born when and where i was. to be reminded of where i fit into this scheme once a year is quite a wake-up call. it seems to me that my job is to honor my part of that deal -- do my best to live in harmony with all those folks on whom i depend to live life comfortably. i need to develop a similar attitude of gratitude for the world in which i live in as i have to the fellowship that gave me this new life, tolerating the little inconveniences that come as part of the deal, after all this too is a gift i need to learn how to cherish. remembering that i cannot provide for myself the comforts of modern society any more than i can stay clean without the support of my fellow recovering addicts, or the car of THE POWER THAT KEEPS ME CLEAN AND PROVIDES FOR ALL MY NEEDS!
what stuck out the most in the reading this morning for me was my dependency on the modern world to provide the comforts of life like; heat, coffee, food, the world-wide web, cigars , music and fuel for my car. i would be sorely pressed to provide any of that for myself, so discovering how to exist in harmony with me community needed to become part of my early recovery and continues to this day. i often rail against post-modern life in this country, complaining about how crowded, rude, and intrusive life has become, ignoring the benefits that i recieve daily from this society. i am not really entitled to any of these things, and they are really a gift that comes from the random chance of me being born when and where i was. to be reminded of where i fit into this scheme once a year is quite a wake-up call. it seems to me that my job is to honor my part of that deal -- do my best to live in harmony with all those folks on whom i depend to live life comfortably. i need to develop a similar attitude of gratitude for the world in which i live in as i have to the fellowship that gave me this new life, tolerating the little inconveniences that come as part of the deal, after all this too is a gift i need to learn how to cherish. remembering that i cannot provide for myself the comforts of modern society any more than i can stay clean without the support of my fellow recovering addicts, or the car of THE POWER THAT KEEPS ME CLEAN AND PROVIDES FOR ALL MY NEEDS!
∞ DT ∞