Tripping Thru Recovery

Why don’t people act right? Don’t they know they get me mad? Looks like everyone is trying their best to piss me off. I could be happy if that woman had given me the job, can’t she see, I’m perfect for it? Why can’t people just do the right thing? Who is she to be mad at me, I did nothing wrong! Hello… I’m sober today, people. Nobody even cares how hard I’ve worked to turn my life around. Don’t I deserve a little credit here? My life sucks, I feel like everyone and everything is against me. Nothing is going my way. Poor little pitiful me.

Does that sound familiar to some of you? In that short paragraph above, there are 13 references to me, myself, and I. Every one of those thoughts that used to swirl around in my mind have one thing, or should I say, one person in common, yep, good old alcoholic-thinking ME. Never in all my lifetime had I believed I was self-centered. There was this one time, in my early 30s, one of my best friends accused me of it, because I was flirting with a guy she liked. I’d like to say I didn’t know she liked him, just to get me off the hook, but I knew. Even so, no flicker of awareness. I had no idea that this behavior was my ego acting out or why it should hurt my friend. The lack of self awareness made me clueless, not blameless, but definitely clueless. There is a huge difference between self awareness and ego centered. Thank God I know that today.

 Another piece of the “me syndrome” is expecting people, places and things to act or be what I expect them to be. Once more, not even a hint of recognition, that I had no control over these things. The expectations I set for other people and situations were extremely high, you might say, unobtainable. No wonder I was so let down all the time by people and things.  Still, it was all their fault that I was miserable.  Of course, I only thought that nothing turned out “as it should”, more accurately, “as I thought it should”.  The only thing making me unhappy was my own unrealistic ideas.  That is insane!

I have no control over people, places or situations. It is not my job to run the world (that is a real good thing for all of you). Allowing each minute of each day to unfold as it may, without expectations, being ok with whatever happens (good, bad, or indifferent), and completely trusting that God is running the show, is so freeing. No longer do I have to worry about the future, what people think of me, the motives of other’s behavior.  None of my business how or why others or things are as they are.  I have come to accept people for who they are, not who I desire them to be. I’ve discovered, giving up my self appointed role as Director of All Things, has given me the freedom to simply live my life, not worrying about what tomorrow may bring. Without expectations, every morning is filled with an exciting anticipation of what the day will bring.  It’s pretty amazing to know I don’t have to be anything but me, right here and now. This freedom allows the focus to stay on the only things that matter, love and acceptance.

The End.