Blog entry for:

of looking at myself, my actions, attitudes, and relationships on a regular basis, helps to keep me more serene and certainly a whole lot less insane. when i read this entry and sat and pondered its meaning to me this morning, little did i realize that my normal Saturday routine would change everything i felt. at my home group this morning, the featured speaker read something that i did not remember ever reading before about love and happiness. it set off a chain reaction that cascaded to my very core that has yet to settle out. especially the part about happiness.
i have to admit, i cringe every time i hear one of my peers share that “GOD wants them to be happy.” not quite as cringe-worthy is the notion that as a human being, i “deserve” or am “entitled” to be happy. i have always thought happiness was based in contentment with oneself and would never approach the ecstasy i felt when using. i had resigned myself to not being miserable and it seems like that is just enough. what i heard at the meeting this morning was that happiness is a spiritual principle and the decision to “be happy” is one that i can make. just like any other spiritual principle, it requires action: deciding to seek happiness and actively removing all the stuff that prevents me from being happy.
i am not talking about politics or what number 45 and his acolytes are doing today, i am certainly powerless over the idiocy that is this post-modern world. what i see as getting in the way of my happiness, because i have decided to seek that today, is my frustration, unmet expectations and resentments, no matter how temporary any of those may be. those three “sins” against myself, can be removed with the help of the POWER that fuels my recovery, active participation in my program of recovery and close association with my peers. for me, addiction is all about not having “enough” and constantly needing more, hence the pile of unmet expectations that fill my day. most of those expectations have to do with how i am failing to live up to my potential or reacting, rather than responding to the world around me. it really sucks that the biggest obstacle to my happiness, is within me and actively working from preventing me from achieving that spiritual principle. once again, it is dwelling in the what i am not, rather than the what i am, and that sucks.
how in the world does that apply to the TENTH STEP and my daily inventory. perhaps a couple new questions to ponder when i sat each evening might be,m was i happy today? if not, what got in the way and did i do my best to remove those obstacles from my path? i will see what the results of looking at those questions bring to my life and get on with what i want to accomplish this afternoon, after all it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞