I Don't Like Him

Resent:  Feel bitterness or indignation at (a circumstance, action or person); to feel angry because you have been forced to accept something or someone you do not like.

I have long been aware of the saying in AA that if you hold a resentment against someone, if you are resisting the impulse to smack the living shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it, then you should pray for them for fourteen days and the resentment will go away.  (Ed. Note: I have never smacked anyone ever.  No living shit, dead shit, or shit of any kind has been dislodged from any of the assholes I've run across in my life, irregardless of whether they deserved a good smacking or not.)

Then in a Big Book study this materialized:"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free.  If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free.  Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free.  Even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway.  Do it every day for two weeks and you will din you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

There's a great episode of Seinfeld where George is obsessed with the fact that Jerry's current girlfriend doesn't like him.  This exchange occurred:

G: She doesn't like me?
J: Yes.
G: She said that?
J: Yes.
G: What were her exact words?
J: I don't like him.

I get that.  I let people who irritate me live in my head while ignoring the people who I love who are literally standing right in front of me.

I also like this exhortation in The Big Book about how to go about planning for one's day: "Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives." 

Self-Pity:  Excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's troubles.
Dishonest: Behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy or fraudulent manner; intended to mislead or cheat.
Self-Seeking: Having concern for one's own welfare and interests before those of others; self-serving.