Working With Seaweed

The topic at my meeting today was "Working with Others."  Apparently the idea is that doing something for someone else without expecting a treat in return is helpful somehow.

I hate thinking about other people.  It seems like such a waste of time.  There's not enough time in the day for me to think about myself let alone fit someone else in.  Ponder the facts - each day has 24 hours and I need 8 hours of sleep, leaving me a total of 16 hours to get everything else in my life accomplished.  I need at least 18 hours a day to think about myself properly.  Anything less than that then I feel less than.  I feel cheated, ignored, adrift and alone.  My choice is to sacrifice sleep or to suffer from a lack of self-absorption.

Luckily I've come up with a solution - I have begun recruiting other people to think about me, too, and I am not making this up.  I send text messages out all the time with this simple question: "Are you thinking about me?"

The responses have been gratifying.  Most people are thinking about me or they apologize for failing their responsibilities while committing to thinking about me on the spot, starting right now.  Or they're lying.  I don't really care.  If I think they're thinking about me that's all that matters because my thoughts are reality.  What I think IS.

In fact, to hustle people along, I've made myself available as a temporary god.  The accepted technique in The Program is to get a sponsor and because this can be daunting to a newcomer we offer a temporary sponsor option - just start to work with someone until you're comfortable asking someone else on a more permanent basis.

This scut work is beneath me so I've suggested, to anyone who will listen to me, an increasingly small list of people, that I'll serve as a temporary god rather than a temporary sponsor, a more exalted position that permits me to demand that people think about me.  

As our book points out "the difference between a demand and simple request is apparent to everyone."