You Need To See It MY Way

Practical: Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use (Ed. Note:  I like the addition of the adjective "real" here.  Apparently one can't be practical in unreal situations.  What kinds of non-real situations are they thinking about?  "Sorry, but that isn't a practical way to go about building a spaceship.")

Theoretical:  Abstract; not empirical.

I'm always trying to apply the lessons I've learned in recovery - the spiritual lessons which I need to remember are "intensely practical" - to what is going on in my corporeal life.  It's one thing to sit down in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee, close my eyes, and try to get closer to my Higher Power, but another thing altogether to apply the lessons I learn when some asshole in a Porsche cuts me off in traffic.

I don't like doing anything that isn't practical.  If it doesn't help me in some tangible way I won't do it.  I always loved that my work gave me the opportunity to watch complex pieces of machinery make something - there was very little wasted motion and things were done as quickly as was practical.  Show me it works and I've learned to give it a shot.  Isn't this how most of us start in sobriety?  Looking askance and aghast at a room full of what are obviously idiots and deciding that their lives look better than your own?  "Might as well give it a shot," we mutter.  "Whatever I've got going on isn't working."

Remember: "The spiritual life is not a theory - we have to live it."

An example of something intensely practical is me keeping my mouth shut.  I don't know why I think that everyone wants to know what I think about everything.  Nevertheless I'm always telling people what they're doing wrong.

The Pandemic of 2020 is - if by "is" you mean "should be" - providing me with a great opportunity to keep my mouth shut combined with a great opportunity to try to see both sides of a very difficult situation as well as the opportunity to keep my trap shut . . . oh, wait . . . . I said that already.  Honestly, being patient enough to try to see where people I disagree with are right is a great blessing of my recovery.  And to at least pretend that I don't know everything.  And to find the balance in all of this.  We're probably overdoing but we'd probably be in worse shape if we were doing less than we are.

See how easy this is?