Look to the Elves

When I was newish I was occasionally asked to give a full Lead or talk in front of a group.  The talk is an opportunity for you to share what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.  Early on most of us have a whole shit-ton of "what it was like" and very little beyond that.  I had a run where I would talk about each of The Steps in order and what they meant to me.  While this can surely be a good way to approach the Lead - after all, we're getting sober in a Twelve Step Program - it also showed a little too much hubris on my part.  Like I was some kind of expert on working The Steps.  A guy in Chicago watched me floundering around, in and out, drunk and sober, and said: "I don't know what you think you're doing but it isn't working."  The first time I decided to exhibit some humility and do a Lead the way you're supposed to I started to get depressed as I listened to myself drone on and on, interminably, camped in the "what it was like" section way, way too long.  "Someone should put this son of a bitch out of his misery," I thought, while I was talking.  Ultimately, it was good for me to listen to myself go over my drinking history in such gruesome detail.  It dispelled any notion that I might not be an alcoholic or even that I was in the  category of High Bottom drunk.

A wise man once said: "The three most important things in life are: be kind, be kind, be kind."  Rat Boy is always rooting through the junk he has in his backyard and I'm hyper-sensitive to any noise he makes.  Sometimes I can't even hear what he's doing over the drone of an air conditioner or a leaf blower but I'm really transfixed by the suggestion of noise coming from him.  I don't think he's a bad dude.   I think he's a fuck-up.  He's living in his mother's old mobile home in a senior park and he doesn't appear to have a job.  While I'm being pretty kind and patient I can always go further.

Remember: everyone is always doing his or her best.

Remember: everyone is thinking about themselves.  No one is thinking about you.  No one is doing anything to you.  They are obliviously crashing along through life with the tools they've been given.  Just like you.  My drunken actions weren't directed at anyone.  I was just drinking and ignoring collateral damage.

Because I believe in the concept of synchronicity I am not amazed when concepts gather together and present themselves to me on any given day.  My other daily meditation book today had these thoughts: "The elves that came in the middle of the night to repair a child's broken toys knew without seeing the results that they were creating happiness and gratefulness in another.  We can do the same for others.  We can decide to be more caring, to watch for opportunities to reach out to others."  Those elves were pretty good dudes.  You could do worse than be an elf.

I'm in Dr. Bob's Story in the Plain Language Big Book.  A couple of sentences popped out as being germane to my life:  "From childhood through high school, my parents forced me to go to church."  Dude, I'm hearing that.  "My whole life was about doing what I wanted to do, without thinking about the rights or wishes of anyone else."  Dude, I am definitely hearing that.  I always liked the fact that Dr. Bob attended the University of Michigan to study pre-med and the professors got together to tell him that going forward they'd be just fine without his presence.  Boy, did that ever happen to me at Ohio  State University's College of Optometry.  I remember those last awful sessions with brutal clarity.  "Go away and don't come back," was the tone the dean used.