Blog entry for:

toward freedom, by opening my mind and paying attention to what is going on around me can feel frustrating at times, after all, i certainly do not relish getting snapped at, every time i forget an event or a name. my reaction to living in that sort of situation is to use pronouns, instead of actually taking the opportunity to learn something i will probably once again forget. some of the time, it feels that is a battle i will always lose and i need to accept that is just who i am, a person who may remember places and faces , but forgets names at the drop of a hat.
the reading today, suggests another way: opening my mind to learning how to give myself a boost to remembering the names of people i meet and interact with, instead of saying “hey, you.” i use the excuse of how old i may as the means to talk myself out of self-improvement in this arena. i also justify it away by telling myself that it is not a job requirement, i can get by on the clues others offer me. when those “tiny white lies” do not suffice, i can always fall back on the notion that is who i am and that is who i will be, ignoring the fact that through living a program of recovery, i no longer match the description of the man who entered the rooms all those days ago. when all of that is stripped away, what i am left with, is the question of whether or not i have the desire to do the work necessary to become better able to retain the names of those i meet.
it really is far from ironic that desire has to be at the root of change for me. i wanted to change my status in the justice system when i came to recovery and that was the impetus for staying clean those first few years. habit, rather than desire carried me through the days that followed until i was ready for the fundamental shifts in my perception of who i was, as the recovery process took hold. the inertia of staying clean and living a program, propels me today, and each time i consciously make a choice to foster my recovery, including listening to others about what they see in me, i add to that velocity. as i prepare to get ready for work and head on down to the office, i feel that maybe, just maybe there may be a kernel of willingness to improve in places in which i am less than stellar and see what happens.

∞ DT ∞