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i used to believe that i had all the answers

Posted: Thu, Jan 6, 2011 10:31:07 AM

just for today i am glad that i do not, as that allows me to grow and learn as new information is uncovered.
it has been said that as long as one is learning one is growing. although it sounds counter-intuitive that the longer i stay clean, the more there is to learn, it has been my experience that is not just a cliché that i mouth to look like i have humility.
in reality the recovery process, has been like an archeological dig for me. under the sediments deposited by years of active addiction lies the person i was born to be. just as those scientist do not actually discover anything that was not known before, my active recovery does not uncover anything new. i was not possessed by an outside force, and yet i made choices that were not conducive to my growth while i was an active addict. each time i made such a choice, i had to suppress my feelings, by using, by telling lies to myself, and acting as if it was part of who i really was. since history is always written by the winners, while i was ion active addiction i rewrote my own history to cover-up what i really was feeling about who i was becoming. the real person within, just kept getting further and further away from my conscious awareness, and eventually was forgotten.
the recovery process reveals more and more about who i am, the longer i stay clean and practice a program of active recovery. each time a new artifact of that long lost person is uncovered, i have to learn how it fits into the world today. as time goes by, as more is revealed, i NEED to learn how that applies in the world today. so the more i learn about myself, the less i know about how that knowledge applies in the current phase of my life. it is frustrating to me, that as i break out of the shell of self-centered fear and delusion, that i discover i NEED to learn how to do things that the so-called normal world takes for granted. that frustration mounts until i DO something, which in my case, happens to be the next STEP, most of the time.
sometimes it sucks that i feel so ignorant about HOW to live life, and that i have to go back and learn HOW to do those seemingly simple things that i never learned as i was growing up. after all, someone with over 50 years of life experience should have a few clues about reality, at least that is what i tell myself.
back to the top. reality is that i DID not learn that stuff. the reality is that only because i am learning who i am and what i truly believe, does that dearth of knowledge is revealed and needs to be addressed. and the gratitude i feel as i write this means that i am becoming open-mended to learning HOW and that the question of WHY is diminishing in its importance.
each day i do this gig, is another opportunity to get closer to the truth, and the destination of the TRUTH about me, while elusive, is certainly a goal worth striving for. HOWEVER, i am of the mind while that goal is great, it is the journey to that goal that is important, and i have to focus on the process and not the result. i have FAITH today, that as long as i keep doing this recovery stuff. i will make progress, and i will have much more to learn as a result.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

This day in older entries

๐Ÿ™ˆ my recovery ๐Ÿ™‰
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i know!
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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

2) The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying
a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless
and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence.
I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and
forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have
enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind
is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos. Ordinary men look
bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look
full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem
to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to
rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull
and incapable, like a rude borderer. (Thus) I alone am different from
other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao).