An Ancient Riff

One of the most ancient riffs in my sober life is my belief that I am who I am.  I like to think that I continue to examine myself and to work on the areas of my life that I feel are less than compelling.  I never want to get complacent, to think that I'm all done, all finished, all that.  I do believe that I'm not in a place where I'm making sea changes in my being - it's more like I'm working on sanding down rough edges and craggy corners.  I guess I don't want to spend a lot of time working on unworkable gears.  I try to behave well and to be consistent in my actions - I don't see that there are too many instances where my friends and comrades can say: "Wow.  I didn't see that coming."  Rather, I want people to nod their lovely heads and say: "Yeah, that sounds like Seaweed."  It may be to your liking and it may not.  So be it.

I say this because it's a great reminder for me to let others live their lives as they see fit.  Nobody but nobody needs me to tell them how to live.  Obviously I wasn't a big success before The Program and I'm not always tearing it up in my sobriety.  I know many, many people in recovery who are not going to change a lot.  They are who they are.  I can draw near or I can draw away but I can't live someone else's life for them.  It helps me to see this - it helps me to accept people for who they are.  It's no good to focus on behavior that I don't care for and to ignore behavior that is really quite nice.