Right Here - Right Now

 "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do lies clearly at hand."  Thomas Carlyle

I think my mantra for 2023 so far is "Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior."  If I did it yesterday I'm probably going to do it today.  Change is hard.  If I want to change something I need to change it right now.  You know - "I coulda been a contendah!"  And if I want to change something then it's on me; it's not on you.  I take too much guilty pleasure in blaming The Other for my defects and shortcomings.  If I want to be a contender then I better start contending right now.

Bill W has this to say about Honesty . . . 

"Sometimes I would simply have to look at certain situation where, on the face of them, I was doing very badly.  Right away a rousing rebellion would set in.  Then the search for excuses would become frantic.  'These,' I would exclaim, 'are really a good man's faults.'  When that pet gadget finally broke apart, I would think, 'Well, if those people would only treat me right, I wouldn't have to behave the way I do.'  Next in order was this: 'God well knows that I do have awful compulsions.  I just can't get over this one.  So He will have to release me.'  At last came the time when I would shout, ' This, I positively will not do; I won't even try.' "

Bill W would have made an excellent modern politician.  Deny the problem; acknowledge the problem but state flatly that it wasn't that bad of a problem; digg in and blame someone else for behaving in a way that caused the aggrieved party to commit the problem; relying on God to remove the problem because it's just too hard of a problem to solve all by my little self; and then, finally, screaming: "Fuck it!  I like this problem!  I'm keeping this problem!"

Bill admits that "I had exaggerated my modest attainments by pride or I would exaggerate my defects by wallowing in guilt."  This thinking is familiar to most alcoholics: we swing wildly between thinking we're all that to thinking we're pieces of shit.  Both of these mindsets have as their core motivation, often deeply hidden,  a need to draw attention to ourselves.

Or this: "I'm not much but I'm all I think about."