Horseface Steve -- VIP

Important:  Meaning a great deal; having much significance, consequence, or value.


I am splitting the responsibility of the secretary position with SuperK for a Tuesday evening 12 & 12 meeting.  The secretary is the person who gets the speaker, starts the meeting off, and makes sure the building is cleaned up and secured for the night.  When the meeting ended last night everyone cleared out to talk or head home, leaving me inside cleaning coffee pots and counters and turning out lights.


"I am way too important to be doing this," I muttered.  "Don't these people know I've been sober for 24 years?  Someone else, someone not as important as me should be doing this scut work."


The fact that I think I'm way too important to have to do almost anything but cash checks and accept praise is an old and familiar defect of mine.  Egomaniac with an inferiority complex, indeed.  When I ponder doing something for someone else I immediately calculate the praise I'll receive, the effort the action takes, and how much credit I'll get for being such a freaking saint.  My self-centeredness is beyond belief.


This has always been my instinct: to figure out what's coming back to me.  It seems so much more important than my part in making life easier for someone else.  This program constantly provides me with reminders of how critical it is to NOT TAKE MYSELF SO SERIOUSLY.   I think my life is full of millions of little chances to make a small difference and very few opportunities to make a big splash.


Our home lives are such a great place to start.  If I can't get up in the morning and treat the people with whom I live with caring and concern, then I'm not off to a very good start.  And it's not enough to simply not act like an asshole -- I need to do better than that.  I need to quit looking through people as if they didn't exist.  If I can't get to work without cursing another drive or brushing off the hello from a barista, then I'm in my own head, way too important.


Way too important.