Blog entry for:

to take life pretty much as it comes, except of course, when i do not!
ENTITLEMENT, EXPECTATIONS, and EXCESS, the three E-words that seem to rule my life. where do i start with the HOPE or with the DESPAIR? well as let me start at the worst case scenario and work my way up to the best.
one thing for certain, interacting with a person who has been around recovery for the better part of two decades and can only manage to string together clean time while incarcerated, certainly shows me how far from perfectly spiritual i am. oh sure, i have not used in 6500 days in a row, but that does not mean that even today the three Es are not active in my life. unfortunately, instead of being big bright and bold, they affect me in very subtle and insidious ways and it is only when i hear them being expressed by a friend or a peer do i stop and say: “yeah, me too!”
expect things to go a certain way, especially after a bit of clean time and progress living the steps. in fact i expect it so much, i come to believe that i am ENTITLED to them working a certain way, sort of a bizarro SECOND STEP, i came to believe that my life would never be insane again! then, when things do not go that way, i treat myself to excess of something or another, to salve my bruised feelings and to change what it is i am feeling, at least in the here and now. a new toy goes a long way to destroy a bit of disappointment. you know the scoop, better living through the easy time payment plan!
even when i am trying to do true good deed, one where there is no expectation of acknowledgement, because only myself and the person i did the deed for, know that i did it, truly selfless and expectation-less, i still can get all butt hurt when the object of the deed, asks for the very thing i was going to do. i get pissed off, because my thunder has been stolen and now i am just being nice instead of spiritual. there i go again caught up in feeling entitled to be allowed to something nice for someone, with no expectation save a bit of gratitude on their part.
and that my friends is just the tip of the nut-ball iceberg. no matter how hard i try to front i am so evolved, more times than not i end up doing crap that i hate doing, because that is THE WAY i have always responded. the HOPE, however, is that i recognize that stuff, do not burn myself down for being a little bit less that spiritual and move on, THROUGH the means and methods available to me. and with that, i believe that is what i will do, after all, if i EXPECT to get paid, then i better boogie my @$$ down to work. it is a great day to be looking at the world from this side of the lawn.

∞ DT ∞