My Willpower

My:  Belonging to me.

I've been off on another willpower jag; as in: what exactly is willpower?  I'm afraid I'm going to repeat myself here by saying the same thing over and over but willpower is a fascinating and confounding and illuminating concept.  The Fonz really helped me the other day with his comment to his higher power: "this is what I've got planned today - let me know if you would rather I do something else."  It really makes things simple to think that all I have to do is do what's in front of me to do god's will.  I spend far too much time trying to figure out what it is and then deciding whether or not it's worthy of me, which it usually isn't.  My will is SO much better than god's will.  The ego of god to think that he could do it better than me.  Who's better than me?  God?  Please.  I could run the world much more effectively than god.  God spends way too much time on things that don't directly involve me and when he's engaged with my stuff, god is goofing it up most of the time, the twit.

When I was getting sober it helped me to substitute "wants" for "will."  I could get my hands around the idea that I was better off turning my wants over to god's care.  Turning events over makes some little sense - if I get a flat tire today I'm not astounded.  It happened - I deal with it.  I confess, however, to really, really not wanting a flat tire.  I don't see why my incompetent higher power would visit such a plague on me - there are tons and tons of Lesser People out there that could be given flat tires and it wouldn't bother me a bit.  In fact, there are a lot of people who deserve flat tires and there are a select group - like the nosy woman who criticized my on-street parking technique - who I would curse with flat tires, dozens of them, day after day.  Defective rims, nails and screws and glass and road debris, drunken teenagers maliciously deflating all four tires in the dead of night, which I never did when I was drinking.

I have been mightily impressed with all of the helpful hints in The Book about willpower.  I am comforted that I have one and I can use it to the best of my ability; indeed, I'm expected to use it to the best of my ability.  I just have to quit using it like some Medieval battering ram, crushing unsuspecting people as I move through my day.  My will is not the will of other people, and it is not the will of god.

I need to keep it in a box, taped shut, and only release it when it's absolutely necessary.