Horseface Steve -- Leader of The Free World!

Lead: To show the way to, or direct the course of, by going before or along with; conduct; guide.

I spoke at a meeting last night. In the Midwest we call this "Giving a Lead." And by "Giving a Lead" I mean "Speaking about myself before a captive group of mostly polite people who are at least pretending to pay attention to what I am saying," which is mostly lies, wild exaggerations, and totally fabricated stories about my existence, both real and imagined, but mostly imagined. Because I have the attention span of a mouse on acid I don't generally enjoy leads. I get bored very, very easily. However, when it's me talking about myself I can only assume that everyone else is hearing what I have to say with utter fascination. How could anyone be bored when I'm talking? Amazing to even consider.

As I blathered on in a random, disjointed fashion I found my circular thinking looping back to a topic near and dear to me; namely, the importance of action and the pitfalls of thinking. An early sponsor suggested that you can act yourself into good thinking but you can't think yourself into good action. He wasn't interested in what I was thinking. He rightly assumed this was not productive stuff. He was extremely not interested in how I was feeling. He rightly assumed I was feeling screwed, put upon, not appreciated, and angry about my terrible lot in life.

"What did you do today?" he would ask. He was complimentary if I did just about anything more complicated than sitting around and thinking about myself.
He was extremely complimentary if I went to work or called my mother. I didn't get it. I didn't like to go to work -- I didn't make enough money, I wasn't running the entire organization, and the commute bugged me. This situation was compounded by the fact that I didn't like any of my co-workers, who didn't appreciate my value to the organization. And my mother, telling me what to do even though she ruined my entire life by raising me and caring for me in a loving and responsible manner, don't get me started about my mother.

The funny thing is that when I act well my thinking improves. I care about things and people that don't interest me at first blush. I learn how to care about people. At my core, I really only care about myself. I have to pretend to care about someone else. I have to practice at it.

I couldn't lead a duck to water.