Easy: Free from trouble, anxiety, pain, etc.
Not. Happening.
Easy on the eyes. Easy in my mind. A life of ease. Easy come, easy go. On easy street. Where the hell is Easy Street anyway? I think that I'm usually hunkered down at 1234 Difficult Way.
Easier: Not easy, not hard. Somewhere in between. Implying that something hard is not quite as hard as it used to be but some hardness is still implied. Not a Webster's definition, either - I totally made that one up.
Easy-going: Dealing with things in an unworried, unhurried manner; not strenuous or agitated.
Yeah, or dealing with things all at once, in a rush, without pondering or thinking because they have to be done RIGHT NOW or else TERRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN! Strenuously agitated.
Easy-mark: A person easily duped or taken advantage of.
I can make anything easy a lot harder. It's a specialty of mine: complicating things, taking a simple task and making it so very difficult.
An elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.
Reasonably: Not extreme; sensible; sane.
The Serenity Prayer suggests that a reasonable goal is to be: "reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy . . . in the next."
Then there's this early version of the Serenity Prayer: "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other."
But wait!! Mother Goose in 1695 suggests that:
For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
I like the Mother Goose thing. I'd take some advice from Mother Goose. I'd take advice from any goose or gander who spoke to me in English or wrote something down on a scrap of paper that I could read. An old conservative minister? Not so much.
Rabbit Hole: : A bizarre or difficult state or situation (Alice enters the Wonderland by going down a rabbit hole).
I sit quietly with my own thoughts. If you think this sounds easy, try it some time. It's not that easy. My thoughts aren't always pleasant. I don't know why this is so and I don't try to figure it out anymore. I don't know if it's my make-up or my upbringing or it's my alcoholism. I don't spend any time trying to figure out why I have legs and how I learned to work them properly, either; I take all of that on faith. It's not something I'm ever going to be able to completely understand. It isn't always logical.
My brain goes this way and that way and down every fucking little rabbit hole I can find. It just does this. It makes no sense most of the time but nothing makes a lot of sense to me. I look at the thoughts as they come and go. They can't hurt me. They're just thoughts. They're not real. If I get attacked and mauled by a bunch of thoughts I'll be sure to post it IMMEDIATELY on this site. We'll really have something going on.
I wonder why Alice went into a rabbit hole anyway? I guess I should re-read the book. I personally wouldn't go down a rabbit hole. There might be some especially large rabbits down there.
I took a 5 hour hike yesterday with a couple of friends from The Program. For the first couple of hours we climbed steadily through forest and then alpine meadows until we reached a spot to eat lunch that was just below the tree line. It was a perfect fall day on the mountain - cool enough for a jacket in the shade but at the top the sun was so intense I got a little sunburn. We ate facing the glacier at the very top of the range. It was funny to think that the area would be under 5 feet of snow in a couple of months.
It was extraordinarily quiet. I have grown so accustomed to all the racket in my city life that it's almost alarming to have a lack of noise. There weren't any tall trees so even the whooshing, whistling noise of wind stirring the branches was absent. My ears felt a little ringey because of the elevation and the strenuous climb. The intense exercise had helped me burn off most of the nervous energy that often plagues my day. I was calm. I was in the moment. I was on my toes and hyper-vigilant for the sound of foraging bears. It was really quite nice.
This is a beautiful world we live in. If only I paid attention every now and then.
Hurry: To cause to move or act more rapidly or too rapidly; drive, move, send, force, or carry with haste.
When I woke up this morning They were gaining on me. I don't know who They are and I don't know what They want. They might not even be after me - They might be after someone else and I've simply gotten in the way. I'm not sure They aren't any good. They might be perfectly fine. Still, I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that They're evil-intentioned, malignant beasts.
I like the suggestion that I should sit quietly with whatever pain or anxiety that may be striking me, real or otherwise. I'm in such a big hurry to get the pain over with that I don't learn the good lessons that I need to learn. It's a relief to sit and look the pain right in the eye and not work so hard at getting through it or around it or muscling it down to the ground. It's just some pain. Everyone gets it. Most of it isn't as bad as we think it is. Many times it leads to something better. It's not such a big deal. I'm the one making it a big deal.
I was able to gear down a little today. I took some time on a few occasions and hung out with Them. This bunch was a ridiculous little group of hilarious bozos. They went away. I didn't have to LEAP INTO ACTION! Answers come to me when I don't struggle so violently.
"We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while." P 86
I was back at the downtown meeting today. I like this meeting a lot. New people tend to share from their hearts and that's always more inspiring than listening to people like me share from their heads. Sometimes people with significant sobriety shift into lecture mode - the message comes across as dry and somewhat hectoring in tone; as in "Here's how you should do it" or "I remember when." I hate I remember when; that's usually when somebody tells a humorous story in great detail that they allege happened in a blackout. I don't think they have a good grasp on what a blackout is.
The flip side of the rigged coin that I use is that I need to be around people sometimes who have gotten sober and stayed sober, too, and to meet some people whose life experiences are similar to mine. If you have kids, for example, it's going to be helpful to swap war stories with other people who have kids. It just makes sense. So I doubt that I'm going to meet my new best friend at this meeting but in the meantime I'm sure hearing a lot of great stuff.
I got called on to speak today at this meeting for the very first time. It's a pretty big meeting and I sit in the back row, against the wall. Frankly, I get to talk about myself enough and there are clearly people here who need to get things off their chests. That being said I NEVER pass up an opportunity to talk about myself to a captive audience. This meeting uses a podium with a mike, as if I need amplification with my Foghorn Leghorn voice. I gave my sobriety date before I spoke today which is not something that I can ever recall doing. I have enough of a problem with my ego as it is but I thought it was important to let people know that it's very possible to stay sober for a long time. "Don't drink and don't die," my sponsor responds when asked how he did it.
And I ran some of my shtick past the group, too. I have these little routines that I trot out from time to time. I apologize when I trot them out at regular meetings. I don't have many stories and I forget who I have told them to. I repeat myself, I'm redundant, I say the same things over and over. Today I wanted to see if anyone - anyone at all - would laugh. People with no job or money, homeless or nearly so, newly sober, at 7 AM , in a church basement, can use a chuckle.
I shared my anecdote about sitting in my parent's living room in my mid-20s at 10 in the morning, sucking down bong hits from this 3 foot long purple monstrosity that I had - where did I hide that thing, anyway? - watching Petticoat Junction or Mork and Mindy, agonizing on how great a loss it would be to give all of this glamour up if I decided to quit drinking. Or saying early on, totally serious, to the earnest man who was trying to impress on me the importance of finding a higher power and working The Steps: "Is there someone else here I can talk to?" I was looking for some quick answers to my immediate problems revolving around a lack of money, power, and sex, not some vague promise of future peace of mind.
Here comes Uncle Joe,
He's movin' kind of slow.
At the Junction.
Petticoat Junction.
Patient: Bearing enduring pain, trouble, etc. without complaining, losing self-control, making a disturbance, etc.
I like the fact that The Program teaches me important stuff by asking me to do some work. Sometimes I learn by enduring something unpleasant. Sometimes I have to wait for something I want and sometimes that thing never comes. I see the growth in this kind of behavior later on - it doesn't occur to me to be grateful when I'm not getting something I want but don't need. I have had to learn to be patient; patience is a quality against which I rebel with every fiber of my being. The phrase "Pray for patience and god puts me in long lines" comes to mind as does "Pray for tolerance and god puts intolerable people into my life." This is why I'm not big on praying for things. I get asked to do things I have no interest in doing.
"Do you want to be more tolerant?" my sponsor asked me.
"OK," I said, warily. There's always a price to pay with that SOB.
"You know how when you're driving into a construction zone and a sign warns that the left lane is going to be blocked and that you should merge to the right so you queue up on the right then watch some of the Special People fly by on the left and then force themselves into the queue of waiting cars at the last minute?" he said.
"I hate those people so much," I replied. "Usually I tailgate the guy in front of me to do everything I can to force the bastards off the road."
"Just let 'em in," he said. "They're going to get in anyway."
"No #$!! way," I commented.
"So you're going to risk having an accident with your car to try to deny this Special Person a spot in the queue when he's going to get in anyway? And where is it that you have to be in such a hurry?" he pointed out.
SOB is too mild a word for this guy. I cleaned up his nickname for any children who might be in the room. He would have been right at home in a Medieval torture dungeon. He would have worked the rack or carried that big iron ball with all the spikes sticking out of it.
He continued the onslaught. "And you know that guy at the meeting that you can't stand?"
"Which one?" I thought but wisely didn't say, figuring this would only encourage him to keep talking. He knows I don't like anyone so he probably didn't have any specific guy in mind. He was setting up the pins to make a point that I didn't want to hear.
"I want you to sit next to him every time you see him for the next 3 months," he said. "Ask him how he's doing."
Why do I call this man?
Maximum: The greatest quantity, number, or degree possible or permissible.
One of the standard affirmations in my morning Quiet Time is to express the hope that I may be of maximum service to everyone that I come into contact with. I believe I've mentioned this before. I suspect that I've mentioned it many thousands of times which is what I do when I want to convince people that I'm doing something pretty admirable that I'm not really doing. That way I get the glory but don't have to do the actual work. It's the best of both worlds. It's another Catch 22 but a really nice one - I highly recommend it. For instance, in my Quiet Time this morning I alternated between nodding off and imagining which super-car I would buy if I won the lottery for which I never buy a ticket. Porsche or Ferrari? How about both? If I'm going to win the lottery I might as well go whole hog. The point is I had a "Quiet Time" and got to fantasize freely.
Yesterday at the meeting I introduced myself to a guy who I had never seen before in my life. Apparently he knew who I was, recalling in great detail a number of past interactions detailed enough so that his recollections seemed pretty plausible and not open for discussion. It was somewhat embarrassing on my part but it happens to me often enough that I simply plow ahead with the conversation. Anyway, he started to tell me a long, convoluted story that completely confused me. I tried to engage him with listening noises and a quick comment or two but I really didn't have any idea what he was talking about. There may have been some mental illness involved; it may have been present in both the speaker and the listener; or he may have been lost on one of the winding flights of fancy that trap all of us from time to time
The point is that there were a lot of my friends at this particular meeting that I would have loved to catch up with. I don't get to see these folks all that often so I like to talk to them. Instead, I listened to this guy spin out a barely comprehensible story. He didn't come up for air once. I could have projected a hologram onto the wall and he wouldn't have noticed. There wasn't a momentary pause that would have given me a chance to bail out.
"Wow," he said. "It's good to see you. Thanks for letting me get that out." Whatever it was that he got out.
This is the conundrum of the prayer. I was of service, apparently. I didn't enjoy it at all. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I want to perform service of my choosing at a time and in a place that is convenient to me.
Maybe I should change my affirmation to "help me be of service at a time and place of my choosing." That would be a really admirable prayer.
