Ho boy. The JFT was on gratitude today. I looked to it for inspiration to write and I'm not sure how much I have to say on that subject at the moment. There are plenty of things I'm grateful for--like being sober, having the opportunity to understand myself better, and the general feeling of peace and serenity I've gotten from working the program of Recovery. Still, I'm on the upswing from one of my dark places, so I'm not exactly bubbling over with joy, happiness, and love for the world. To be fair, though, I'm hardly ever... bubbly.
A big miracle of Recovery is that we have choices, now that we're sober. We can choose to not put in. We can choose not to act on our character defects. We can choose to help others instead of focusing on ourselves. I can choose not to shit all over the 'Just For Today', even though I think it's a little too free-love, hippie, la-la-la today. Gratitude is an important subject, and an emotion that we show more and more of the more time we have and the more we work the program.
I'm coming up on finals week for school. I've done a quick calculation to see where I'm at in my three classes. Two of them, I've got solid A's in; the other I've missed enough homework assignments that I'll only be able to pull a 'B'--even if I ace the final. The good news is that I'll still pull a 'B' in the class even if I get a 'C' and that takes a lot of the pressure off. The A's I'm getting are ones I worked hard for and it feels good to be getting the rewards of that hard work. I suppose I can admit that I worked for the B, too, but it's tough to do that without beating myself up for the 'A' I won't get.
Suddenly I'm thinking about how strange it has been, going back to school and doing well. Yes, I'm a smart guy and I'm working hard, but there's still those old childhood holdovers. All the years I didn't try, or thought I didn't need to. Being told the sun shined out of my ass at home, and getting my ass beat at school. Ah, that's not fair, it wasn't quite like that. Sure I was bullied pretty bad, didn't have friends. And from the home front I got a lot of messages about being naturally smart, special, and wonderful that I knew weren't true because if they were then why were all the other kids always being so mean to me? Perfection was the expectation, and failing to live up to that was a sin worse than... well, I don't know what exactly. But if I did do well in school, I got it even worse from the bullies, so I learned to not try hard, just accept 'good' grades. That way, I could find the best balance between the taunts of the bullies and the frustrations of my parents who couldn't understand why I refused to live up to my potential. Oh sure, they still loved me, just not as much as if I had gotten the straight A's they knew I should have been getting.
Hmm... I may still have some work to do on this subject.
The point I was trying to make, is that one thing I'm still struggling with is not being hard on myself. It's tough for me to be proud of myself for getting the grades I'm getting because I keep holding myself to the standard of perfection. It's tough to not beat up on myself, remember that I'm a great guy that any woman would lucky to have, when I'm sitting here by myself and seeing couples walking around all the time. All the shades and shadows of 'should' and 'supposed to' still circle. Hehe. Instead of focusing on all that, what I 'should' be is grateful--HA!
Ah, 'should'. I hate that word. It's nothing but negative.
On another note, I've been working on spiritual-izing my room. I brought some white sage back with me from my trip this weekend. Tonight's a new moon, perfect for a cleansing smudge. More on that tomorrow.
Be well, my readers. Stay sober--you're worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment