"Feeling Lost"

There is something comforting about black and white. Either or. Right or wrong. Good or bad. It's a way of looking at the world and making what you see very simple. Small problem, though: most of life is not simple. Or shit, I don't know, maybe it is simple for some people and it's just not simple for me.

I've been thinking about selfishness lately. My therapist has got me focusing on this idea. I must admit to having some difficulty with it. Part of the problem is years of Recovery training against not being a selfish asshole. Part of it is the learning I did growing up that being selfish is wrong, bad, sinful. And part of it is just the me that is me who hates how much selfishness there is in the world around me. And part of it is the me who feels guilty and ashamed for so much as thinking selfishly.

When in the grips of our disease, we are extremely selfish. I've heard it said that being selfish isn't bad, in and of itself. It's that we as addicts and alcoholics find unhealthy ways to be selfish, and we take it to the farthest extreme. Working the program is a selfish act, but one that is good for us. It helps us to build a more positive relationship with ourselves and with others. But no matter what we do in the program, no matter how much we help others along the way, we are doing it all for a selfish reason: to not get loaded. Somehow, we decide that we are worth more than to spend the rest of our lives using. Maybe we decided that we don't want to go to jail again, or we don't want to be institutionalized again. It's still a selfish decision.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this positive selfishness stuff. There's a lot of resistance there, a loqt of learning to unlearn. My insides say that any kind of selfishness is bad. Period. That if I am selfish in any way, I have to balance it out, or even totally overcompensate, with selfless acts. The only way to justify being selfish is to be even more selfless. I'm thinking that this idea in my head is why I'm having so much trouble with the self esteem lately.

I'll keep working on it.