Masters of Manipulation

One of the newer men I talk to after our meeting is in his 40s, recently divorced, and - like most of us when we were new - worried about his future, remorseful over all the mistakes he made while drinking and eager to charge into a new life that he's constructed in his mind.  How often do we see this!  We've made a grand mess of things and we're in a hurry to make up for lost time.  But here's the thing about time: it doesn't really care what you think or what you want.  It's an immutable fact of existence.  It has always been here and it will always be here and it's never going to change.  We can count on time to be reliable.  Sometimes time seems to slow down and sometimes it seems to speed up but that is only our human perception.

My friend is/was in a relationship that he values but things have hit a snag.  His girlfriend has pulled back and he's understandably finding this very frustrating and worrisome.  I see the same behavior over and over in people who want something and are determined to manipulate events so that it works out the way they want it to work out.  Sometimes we behave consciously and sometimes our motives are hidden under thick layers of self-justification.  We're masters of this kind of behavior: we wheedle and whine and try to get our way by making our target feel sorry for us and react out of guilt; we drive forward forcefully and try to overpower our target to get them to do what we want; we practice passive-aggressive behavior, a masterful, subtle, and powerful skill that alcoholics have honed into a razor-sharp technique; we get pissed off and slam doors shut for good, forever, unwilling to wait patiently to see how things play out, to allow our target to work through their issues.  We do all of this stuff.  What we have trouble doing is to act with patience and consideration, to put the needs of the other person ahead of our own.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

And We Change Our Minds

For a variety of reasons holidays can be difficult for people - loneliness for some, pressure to have the "perfect" celebration, the stress of being around family members and friends with whom you don't feel particularly close or even close at all or maybe you don't even like them a little bit and maybe you  can't stand their stinking guts . . .  these are all more common than we like to think.

SuperK and I aren't really wrapped up in the expectations of the Holiday Season.  We just aren't.  Our family histories are part of this as is our natural skepticism of behaving in a conventional, appropriate manner.  So often we travel.  When we aren't gone I poke around in my meeting to see if there are any members at loose ends or alone that might want to do something with someone.  I know a new-ish woman who moved here not long ago from New York and when I asked her if she wanted to join SuperK and me for a Christmas meal she immediately accepted.  I was somewhat surprised, and even more skeptical that she would follow through, so I assured her later that if she changed her mind it would be no problem.

Here's the thing about new people: they are so eager to please that they agree to things without carefully considering the implications of what they're agreeing to.  We're afraid to hurt people's feelings by saying no and this is compounded by the fact we don't even know yet what we like to do or don't like to do.  So I kept checking my messages.  I was skeptical this was going to go off as planned.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Then, half an hour before the meeting, she cancelled, with vague reasoning.  I was not surprised.  Why this young woman would want to go to lunch with some diffuse hipster old enough to be her dad and some woman she doesn't know - strangers are intimidating to new people, just being with folks we don't know - and she doesn't appear to be a morning person and the winter weather wasn't cooperating and she recently moved about a half an hour inland so . . . yeah . . . not surprised this happened.  My rule with new new people is to never make plans to meet them unless it's someplace I'm going to anyway.  That way their understandable and totally predictable unreliability doesn't affect my mood.  Before I walked into the meeting - well attended on Christmas Day - I paused to send her a text assuring her all was well all was well all was well, and she immediately responded with gratitude I could feel infusing the satellite waves and wafting over the miles.  Her guilt was oozing over the mountains from her new home and the last thing I want to do is make someone feel worse.

The Authentic Self

"Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities.  'How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done."  Big Book P 85

Don't you love how we had to add "not mine" in parenthesis?  That we need to be reminded that my will is not God's will?  I wouldn't have been surprised if Bill had added "you idiot" in parenthesis at the end of the sentence to top things off.

I also have to remember that I need to be true to myself while being of maximum service to others.  I'm not going to be helpful if I'm not authentic.  Here's the Toltec's take:  "We often project an image, or an identity, of how we want other people to see us in the world.  We use these images or identities to help us relate to other people while understanding deep down that they are not the real us.  So we can assume these identities to be helpful with the full knowledge that we can discard them when they're no longer needed.  So, for instance, we don't try to fit into our loved ones' ideas of who we should be because when we don't meet these standards, or standards that we've set for ourselves, that are projected onto us then we end up rejecting ourselves."

The power of the Authentic Self.  Man, o man.

Willpower and Such

"No one is responsible for your emotional reactions except you.  When you find yourself in a difficult situation or you're dealing with a difficult person restrain yourself from doing or saying anything at that moment if that is an option.  Then remove yourself from the situation until you have more clarity.  Let no one tell you that being a Master of self does not involve willpower, as in certain situations exercising restraint may require  all the willpower you have."  Toltec Proverb

"No one ought to say the A.A. program requires no willpower; here is one place that may require all you've got."  12 & 12 Step Five

Uh-huh.  Okay.  Looks like the same stuff to me.  One originated in the jungles of Central America ten centuries ago and one originated in Akron and New York a hundred years ago.

When I think about it most of the Gods or god-like figures I'm familiar with are .  .  . nice.  Jesus was nice.  The Buddha was very nice.  I can't imagine Jesus being a dick to the staff at a coffee shop or The Buddha cutting someone off in traffic.  Whenever I become conflicted about the whole god thing I figure if I'm just nice then I'm covering my bases.

Some Advice on Giving Advice

" My serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations.  I ask myself: 'How important is it, really?'  I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for God to tell me what to do.  Rather, I do whatever is in front of me.  When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away."      

"Today, I find that being an alcoholic is the best thing that ever happened to me.  This proves I don't know what's good for me.  And if I don't know what's good for me, then I don't know what's good or bad for you or for anyone.  So I'm better off if I don't give advice . . .  Before A.A., I judged myself by my intentions, while the world was judging me by my actions."     

This idea of not giving advice is found again and again in our literature.  It must be one of those things we keep doing over and over so it has to be repeated again and again.  So the advice is to stop giving advice.

Personally, I'm doing the best I can today with the tools I've been given and with the upbringing I lived through.  I can only hope that when I disappoint or offend someone that they can try to see beyond the actions to the history and experience that underlie them.  That doesn't give me the right to be offensive but to the person with empathy it may lead to a gentle understanding.

I'm a Pretty Big Deal

I need to remember that whatever is upsetting me today is not going to amount to a hill of beans in the long run.

"This is indeed the kind of giving that actually demands nothing.  He does not expect his brother sufferer to pay him, or even to love him.  And then he discovers that by the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether his brother has yet received anything or not."

The Big Book p. 109 

Boy, the Theory of Relativity is easier for me to understand than the idea that if I give I get more than I lose.  Really, really weird stuff.

Today I strive for authenticity, for allowing Authentic Seaweed to run amuck.  I hope that I don't behave in a fashion that conforms to your idea of how I should behave.  Don't get me wrong - sometimes I alter my behavior out of kindness or comity.  But if I'm not true to myself, to my own nature and my own beliefs about what is right and what is wrong I'm going to suffer for this self-deception.  No one likes a phony or a liar.  No one likes a shape-shifter.  This isn't a horror movie.  I don't think it's hard to get to know me.  I think what you perceive in the first few minutes is what you're going to see in the future.  I let it rip.

SuperK shared a suggestion about releasing negativity with me a while ago but neither of us can remember the exact expression.  The basic idea is that I should just stop being negative.  Drop the negativity!  It takes more effort to be negative than it does to be positive and it's more exhausting emotionally.

Hot Tub Guy Et Al

There's a dude I see often at the pool.  He's not a bad guy -  he's socially awkward and he's totally self-absorbed which hardly makes him a freak in today's society.  He's one of those people I'd rather not run into; not because he's evil but because I find him quite boring.  Where I have to be careful is with his politics - which run counter to mine - and this is especially true if he's with Hot Tub Guy.  True believers can generate a lot of true beliefs when they're agreeing mightily with each other.   Anyway,  those two were talking loudly in the hot tub the other day where I was trying to decompress after my swim when - against my better instincts - I decided to chime in briefly.  I knew I should have stayed out of it.  They weren't talking to me.  They weren't asking for my opinion.  They didn't have a secret agenda to annoy me.  True, they could have turned down the volume a little bit as their discussion veered into some potentially inflammatory areas.  But, once again and as always, if I had kept inside my own hula hoop I wouldn't have taken some incoming fire from them.  Their comments weren't vicious by any means but they were pointed and the effect was pretty harsh.  I was offended.

I stewed about this during the day.  I didn't want to overreact but I wanted to make sure that I stood up for myself and that they didn't talk to me like that again.  I thought of all kinds of ways to do this.  I thought I might wear some fake ear buds and pretend I was on the phone.  I thought I might turn my back to them and peer into the distance.  Or maybe get out of the hot tub if they walked in.  I considered asking them politely to leave me alone.   Again, the idea is not to make a mountain out of a molehill while still getting to relax in the hot tub.  The books tell me that if I sit quietly with a problem that I'll intuitively understand how to react, that a solution will pop up after a while.  So . . . I'll go swimming a half hour earlier than I normally do!  Brilliant!  Revolutionary!  It's not exactly what I want to do but it's an easy, calm solution that won't hurt anyone and won't inconvenience me too much.

My God has a sense of humor.  My God likes to fuck with me.  As I sat down to meditate at the beach this morning, after the Keep It Complicated meeting, the non-Hot Tub Guy strolled up and basically apologized.  He apologized for the political tag he attached to me yesterday.  He did kind of blame Hot Tub Guy for sparking the confrontation - not without merit, I have to say - but he apologized.  He knew he had been unkind.  He also had a lot of questions about Alcoholics Anonymous, referencing his own past drinking and drug use, intimating he might like to meet me at a meeting one day.  As he walked away I was laughing to myself at how my God rewards me for trying my best to solve a problem by just taking the problem away.  Poof!  Problem?  What problem?

I heard a story long ago in sincity where a member shared that because of some bad blood he had with a next door neighbor he was told by his sponsor to pray for the guy for two weeks.  He did so, gritting his teeth at the start, but eventually coming to a peaceful place with his attitude to his neighbor.  He got up one morning near the end of the two weeks, walked outside to get the paper, and there was a For Sale sign in his neighbor's yard.

True story.  Most of it.  Some of it.