"Dreams And Eskimos"

I don't talk very often about my drug of choice. For the record, it was (is?) marijuana. I'm not sure if I heard it said in a meeting or by someone in the medical profession, but one of the things about potheads is that we all have big dreams. I think I was ten years old when I first decided it was my purpose in life to change the world. And the way my sick and twisted mind worked, if I didn't change the world, well then I was a total failure as a human being. Yeah. Yeah, that's some serious egotism there.

I'm not sure if I can even really put the twisted mindset I carried around into words any better than the description above, so I guess that will have to do. But I carried this two-headed beast of an idea for a long time. Over the years, it took different shapes, some positive, others not so much. As a young teenager, I thought it was my mission to go into the ministry. As my love of music grew, so did my dreams of becomming a rock star.

There's nothing wrong with dreams, having goals, ambitions. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change the world for the better, either. For me, this desire didn't come out of a genuine place of altruism or goodwill. I felt worthless, like someone who just took up space in the world, consuming valuable air; I had to make some huge momentous change in the world just to justify my existence. It was about as far from right-sized as you can get.

Through working the program of Recovery, I've learned a few things. Not the least of which, of course, is that it is possible to live life without being loaded all the time. But more than that, is that I don't have to save the world, that I in fact don't have to do anything, say anything, or be anyone other than who I am as I am in order to be loved.

I've gained a different perspective, too, on the whole changing-the-world thing. As I've moved through my life, I know I have touched others. I remember being a teenager and knowing a girl who got pregnant. Years later, she would tell me how much she appreciated my compassion, understanding, and absence of judgment. One of my close, long-time friends has mentioned many times how I was one of very few people who didn't treat her as 'different' when we were kids because she was black and poor. Being in the rooms of Recovery is no less than a blessing as I get to watch and help others people come in, sit down, and begin changing their lives for the better. So maybe I'm not changing the world, just helping to change the worlds of those whose lives I get to share in.

I was at a meeting last night and someone told the story of the Eskimo. It's a common enough story in 12-step rooms, and one I've retold in this space before. I've had many eskimos in my life; I get to be the eskimo in others' lives. And that's a very good feeling, very powerful.

Whatever you call your higher power, when we follow it, we become aligned with that powerful force and become agents of its will. We start the Recovery process wanting nothing more than to learn how to live without getting loaded. What we get is so much more.