Festering

 The Dali L. has this to say this morning:  "Admire from the depths of the heart your own virtues and those of others.  Take joy in the good things you have done in this and previous lives, thinking, 'I have done something good!' "

It makes me think about how alcoholics - masters of the extreme - whipsaw between refusing to admit any faults when drinking to accepting our part in every bad thing that has happened in the world, forever.  How often I've heard stories of sponsors reminding the sponsored to add in the good things that we've done and to forgive ourselves, too.  We haven't been good actors but we aren't monsters, either.

And a man named William Bolitho chimed in from the pages of my daily meditation book: "The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains.  Any fool can do that.  The really important thing is to profit from your  losses."

Reminds me of the probably apocryphal story of a sponsor telling me: "Seaweed, any idiot can be happy when he's getting what he wants."  I'm pretty sure I made that up.  As previously noted I never let the truth  get in the way of a good story.   But it is easy to see the profit in what we gain, but is not so easy to see the profit in what we lose.  How can we change so that we see profits from the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or the estrangement from family?  I rarely make significant changes in my being when I'm getting what I want.  I cruise.  I slide by.  And sometimes I fester.