Blog entry for:

how i react to the challenges that life presents, is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. i am very fond of personal power and in the real world, i have very little. i am powerless over addiction, other people, the political turmoil and a whole host of other thing far too numerous to waste my time listing out. my point is, that where i have personal power, i cherish and use it. i CHOOSE to make the decisions that affect my day, by responding to my emotional reactions, rather than acting on them without any consideration of whether or not i will find the consequences acceptable. the beauty of working steps and learning to live an active program of recovery, is that i gained this little bit of personal power. where once i was ruled by my feelings and acted accordingly, now i “get” to make a choice on how i will respond to them. it is not as if my feelings have ceased to exist, or that i can control them or lack the desire to change them, it is just that i have learned the ways and means to live with them.
speaking of feelings, i have a whole boatload of angst over the online assessment for this job i am attempting to land. i asked for and got the extension until Sunday and i am pounding my way through a bunch of coding exercises to get my python skills a bit stronger. i want to let go of the result, but every fifteen minutes i hear that i am not nearly as talented or skilled enough for this position. i know that is an echo of my past, reminding me that i once believed i was not good enough to be seen in public, unless i played whatever role i needed to play. i may not be good enough to get the position, but that does not mean i stop working on polishing up my act, before i push the button” nor does it mean that i just walk away. i have lived in those alternatives before, and today i CHOOSE not to live there.
saying something like that does not make it so. sure i am going to buy a lottery ticket that may be worth the better part of a billion dollars. will i base my life on the fantasy that i WILL pick those “lucky numbers.” nope, but what i will do is make the purchase, spend a minute or three thinking about how my life might change if i win and let the whole thing go. i have the best teams i can possibly have for fantasy football and am ready the games this week. that does not mean i will not obsess about eking out a few more points. what it does mean is that i can stop at any time and just be okay with how things are set-up. so it is off to the streets on this cold late October morning to get some steps, burn some calories and leave a few of my concerns behind. just for today, i will accept the power to respond, rather than react to my feelings.

∞ DT ∞