Into Thinking

"Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely.  You are going to be productive, you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything.  But it is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy.  When you always do your best, you take action.  Doing your  best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward."

I consider the titles of some of the original Alcoholics Anonymous chapters often.  There is a lot of emphasis on doing things: Into Action, How it Works, Working with Others.  There are not a lot of chapters dedicated to thinking.  "Into Thinking" would be very popular with new people who believe that the best thing to do would be to go off alone and think.  Very productive.  We are such clear thinkers.  Everything we think makes perfect sense to the entire world.  And if you don't believe me then share what you're thinking with another alcoholic.  The facial expression you're seeing could best be described as a confused sneer or maybe appalled confusion.  In other words - you are not making any sense at all.  That's why we encourage you to share whatever weird bullshit is richochting around in your brain with another . . .  you know . . .  live, conscious, attentive person.  If you stick with The Program then the looks on whomever you are currently holding captive with your confusion will start to improve.  

I took to heart the suggestion that I should initially concentrate on improving my behavior and a little later adding what words came out of my mouth into the mix.  Along the lines of not taking a swing at the guy I was calling a son of a bitch.  "Sure, if you think it's helpful you can still curse some guy out as long as it doesn't escalate beyond that."  That kind of thinking.  I know, I know, it doesn't sound great but my improvement was incremental.  No one mentioned trying to improve my thinking at the start because they knew that was way, way beyond any self-improvement progress I was going to be making.  In fact, I still do some homicidal thinking from time to time.  I just keep my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets while I'm doing it.

So today go to work and do your best.  If you do this you'll be happier at the end of the day.  If you just put in the time, resentfully, tolerating your job only for the paycheck and waiting for the escape of the weekend, then . . .  whew . . . sounds miserable, doesn't it?  It is work so it's not going to be as pleasant as play but if you're doing your best then it's going to go better.