I'm Unable to Change the Past

"We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything.  The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they're the truth.  We could swear they are real and this swearing is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes they are real.  We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking - we take it personally - then we blame them.  We only see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear.  We don't perceive things the way they are.  We have the habit of dreaming with no basis in reality.  We literally dream things up in our imagination."

In other words: No one is thinking about me.

"It is comforting to know that every day we are in contact with people who put such confidence in us that we strive harder to do our best.  When one person can be challenged, another may need to be told how to rise above emotions and imagined shortcomings.  We all need approval and attention, and when someone cares, it makes an important difference."

I often remind myself that the only good message is one that builds up.  I realize all of us need to get a swift kick in the ass some of the time - we're that stubborn in our beliefs and behavior - but I devote most of my time to patting the back instead of kicking the ass.  We are so incredibly hard on ourselves that I don't have the heart to yell at anyone.  

"We might be able to go back and do things differently if we had new knowledge, new understanding.  Otherwise, we would do the same things.  We work with what we have, with what we know.  To anguish over what we did in the past is foolish.  Most of our regrets, of course, are either imagined or history."

I did the best I could with the tools I had at the time.  And I know this to be fact: I am completely unable to change the past.

Twenty Bucks

As the current thematic drift has been sorta along the lines of "quit bullshitting yourself" and also "quit repeating yourself" I'm going to repeat one of my favorite themes: how good we are at bullshitting ourselves.

This may be an old example but it's so damn good I'm going with it again:
If I offered you a twenty dollar coupon that you could apply to a thirty dollar grocery bill with the only stipulation that you had to walk an extra fifteen minutes past your regular grocery store to a second store to earn the discount, what would you say?  No brainer, right?

Now let's change the offer: would you make the same fifteen minute walk to earn the same twenty dollar coupon if you were purchasing a fifty thousand dollar car?  No fucking way, right?  I'm spending fifty grand so twenty bucks is chicken feed, right?

This is illogical.  This makes no sense.  Zero sense.  The coupon is a reward for walking fifteen minutes out of your way but in one case you jump at the offer and in the next you laugh it off, even though it's the exact same thing.  This is why people pay money for a navigation system they'll never us or for a bigger engine that provides no extra performance.  They compare instead of looking at the math.

I don't trust my thinking.  And I think a lot.  The message to myself is that most of it's bullshit.

Our minds do this stuff all the time.  There's an evolutionary reason behind it, no doubt, but it's not helpful in all cases.  This is why those of us who have been around for a while know how important it is to talk to other people.  We're nuts, basically.  We're not really nuts anymore and we're not nuts all the time but we're still nuts.  I cannot tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a story or an anecdote or a justification when I see a skeptical look grow on the face of the person I'm talking to.  Just because I've manipulated the facts so that they make sense to me doesn't mean that they make sense in an absolute sense.

Self-Restraint

Self-Restraint:  Control over your own actions or feelings that keeps you from doing things that you want to do but should not do.  If you show self-restraint you do not do something even though you would like to do it, because you think it would be better not to.

The benefits of a close reading of our literature continue to accrue.  Highlights and underlining also 

help because they show me how repetitive our Founders were when they wrote the books.  They knew we wern't listening most of the time so they had to say the same things over and over and over.  Most of the time they didn't even bother to use different words.  They used the same words to say the same things, often in the same paragraph, sometimes in the same sentence.

I may have made that last point up.

From Step Ten in the 12&12: "In all these situations we need self-restraint . . .  Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint.  Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.  For we can neither think nor act to good purpose untile the habit of self-restraint has become automatic.  Disagreeable or unexpected problems are not the only ones that call for self-control."

All of these lines were from the same paragraph in Step Ten.

I definitely made part of that up.  The last sentence was the first sentence in the second paragraph and not in the same paragraph but that's so close I hoped I could get away with such a minor lie, one given with such noble intent.  A good lie, right, not an evil, nasty lie.  But the point is that apparently self-restraint is one of our goals.  Because it is repeated five times in a manner of seconds.

OK, I made that up, too.  It's not repeated in a manner of seconds - more like minutes - but seconds sounds so much more impressive.

Toltecs and Bill W and Dr. Bob, Oh, My

"Sometimes wisdom is knowing what to overlook.  Because we never know when we are going to be in another person's shoes.  If it should happen, we want to be forgiven - for a variety of reasons.  Overlooking shortcomings is not just wisdom - it's kindness as well.  Who has not hoped the world was looking the other way when he or she fell short of being admirable?"

  

The Toltecs are killing me here.  How important is the spiritual lesson that "to err is human, to forgive divine?"  To realize that my annoyance at someone else is due to the fact that I quickly jump to the conclusion that their actions harbor ill intent, bad motives, a desire to do me personal harm, instead of deciding that maybe they just made a fucking mistake?  Priceless.  Priceless in the peace of mind department.

"Me, me, me, always me!  Nothing other people do is because of you.  It is because of themselves.  All people live in their own dream, in their own mind, so don't take it personally.  That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours.   When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts.  You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong."

The two sure steps to serenity are 1) Don't sweat the small stuff and 2) It's all small stuff.  Or an elephant is really a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.  Do you really think that the guy in front of you who is driving too slowly or too quickly or with their left hand turn signal blinking continuously or making a turn without using a turn signal is doing something to you?

Or . . . do you want to be right?  Or do you want to be happy?  (Ed. Note: I always thought this was a trick question, the answer being, natch, both!  I'm happy because I'm right!)

"It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you think personally.  It does not affect me because I know what I am.  I don't have the need to be accepted.  I don't have the need to have someone tell me what I am.  It doesn't matter to me."

While the axiom of "I don't give a shit" can get out of control from time to time not giving a shit can really save me some angst.

"You are the director, you are the producer, you are the main actor.  Everyone else is a secondary actor.  It is your movie.  It is no one's truth but yours.  Then if you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself.  I am the excuse for you to get mad.  And you got mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear.  If you are not afraid, there is no way you will get mad at me.  If you live without fear, if you love, there is no place for any of those emotions.  Because you like the way you are.  Because you are content with you.  Because you are happy with your life.  You are happy with the movie that you are producing, happy with your agreements with life."

Here's Alcoholics Anonymous: "Every person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way.  If only people did what he wished, the show would be great.  Everyone, including himself, would be pleased.  The show would be great.  In trying to make these arrangements our actor may be quite virteous.  On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, and selfish and dishonest." 

This idea that I need to figure out what everyone else should be doing is simultaneously preposterous and profound.  I'm the actor.  I'm not even the actor, I'm an actor.

The Committee, Toltec Style

"The mind can also talk and listen to itself.  Part of the mind is speaking, and the other part is listening.  It is a big problem when a thousand parts of your mind are all speaking at the same time."

I mean, c'mon, isn't this simply a Toltec interpretation of the infamous Committee?  As a reminder the Toltecs came to power in central Mexico beginning in the ninth century.  For those of us who are math-challenged that's eleven centuries ago.  Ten centuries is a long time but eleven is one more now, isn't it.  One thousand one hundred years ago a pre-Mayan culture was warming up to the idea that it's possible to harbor hundreds and hundreds of screaming, gibbering maniacs inside one head, all of them vying for your attention.  I'm going to assume there were alcoholics in that culture.

Another of my scarcely funny jokes: My committee has been reduced down to about ninety-seven members.  That doesn't sound too good - almost hundred screaming, gibbering maniacs vying for my attention but I'll tell you this: after listening to a thousand screaming, gibbering maniacs for the thirty years it took me to get sober this qualifies for near silence on the shores of high mountain lake as the sun is beginning to rise.  I'll take it any day.

Doing the Best We Can

From Step Nine, at various points: "It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier."  And then, earlier: "We must be sure to remember that we cannot buy our own peace of mind at the expense of others."  And down the road a bit: "The only exceptions (to making amends) we will make will be cases where our disclosure would cause actual harm."

Hey, alcoholics, we don't pay attention!  So our Founders have to repeat themselves over and over!  And they don't even bother to change up the words that much because they know we won't remember what we didn't pay attention to, anyhow!

The Cherokee Lady: "To live peacefully with other people, we need insight and careful judgment.  So much is hidden from ordinary view that it takes time to know something well enough  to say anything at all."

Hey, this alcoholic can't keep his mouth shut!  The advice I dispense often but not often enough that I remember to apply it to my own life regularly is that everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have at their disposal.  When I tell this to myself and actually believe it then I have a lot of empathy for the behavior of other people.  We're all doing the best we can.  I don't believe there are too many really crappy people out there.  I believe there are a lot of decent people who are making a shit-ton of mistakes.  How about we give each other a big, monstrous break?

Or in Cherokee speak: "Sometimes wisdom is knowing what to overlook.  Because we never know when we are going to be in another person's shoes.  If it should happen we want to be forgiven - for a variety of reasons.  Overlooking shortcomings is not just wisdom - it's kindness as well.  Who has not hoped the world was looking the other way when  he or she fell short of being admirable?"

Maybe the asshole in front of you driving too slowly or driving too quickly or not using their turn signals or speeding up right when the light turns yellow so they make it through but you don't is making a mistake or is distracted by some serious matter affecting their lives.  How about that?

No Regrets

"The important thing is not to regret what has gone before but to take from it the lesson, the experience that was in it for us.  (Ed. Note: I like the use of the lesson rather than a lesson.  Implies that there is something specific to be learned.)  Life is a two way street, not always sunshine and flowers but a few clouds, a few tears, go with it.  It is a complex mixture of many things we are supposed to glean from it.  We cannot park by what went wrong, nor can we longer forever by something we might have done right.  It is a progressive, moving time filled with new experiences, memories both good and not so good, and many promising hours."

I am very curiously curious about this difference between an apology - a statement of regret for a harm done - and an amend - a course of action taken to correct a harm done.  Mistakes are part of life.  To err is human etc etc etc.  The key, the trick, is to stop doing whatever it was that caused offense.  Saying I'm sorry is a LOT easier than changing my behavior.

Regret:  A feeling of sadness about a mistake you have made and a wish that it could have been different or better; pain caused by deep disappointment, fruitless longing, or unavailing remorse.

I was talking to a friend before the meeting yesterday and making a joke that I was vaguely aware was close to crossing that line between edgy humor and inappropriate behavior, even offensive-to-some behavior.  And I think what made it dangerous was that I involved a third person.  This dude knows I love him and care about him and mean no harm but didn't like that the joke went outside the small circle of two.  I think I could talk after this fashion between the two of us without offending anyone.  When the third guy walked away he called me out on it in a very kind fashion, but I could see that it wasn't easy for him to tell me this stuff.  Because I knew I was awfully close to that line I acknowledged that my behavior could be misinterpreted I apologized several times, even thanking him for being secure enough in our friendship that he could bring this up, and I could see the relief on his face when I added that last bit.

After the meeting I apologized one more time and even chased down the third guy to make sure he took no offense.  OK.  Good.  Fair enough.  I'm done apologizing.  The Books have a number of passages that remind us that we don't grovel before anyone - we apologize sincerely and move on with our lives.  If the offended party doesn't accept that apology that's on the offended party's conscience, not ours, although the really important part is that I now must not behave the way I was behaving in those circumstances.  The apology is important but not as important as the amended behavior.  Apologies are great but they can, from time to time, be insincere.  Good behavior is beyond reproach.  

Falling short is fine - learning from it is not.