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ยน a look at my relationships, ยน

Posted: Sat, Mar 14, 2015 07:51:15 AM

tells me much about my essential character or quite a fancy way of saying does the two a$$hole rule apply. it was weird the other evening hearing someone else using what may or may not be my original thought, but that is a tangent and one i need not go down today.
the rule of two, is that if i encounter someone who is an a$$hole during the course of my day, perhaps that person just is an a$$hole, HOWEVER, if i encounter a second one, than maybe there is something going on with me and i am the a$$hole. it can grow from there, but that is the gist. so what does this rule have to do, with how well i do my relationships with others?
my rule of thumb, is an extension of the two a$$hole rule, when i toss and turn, because i am angry at so and so about the interactions we have had, and i still stumble and fall in respect to interacting with others, i have to ask myself, what did i do that was correct and what could i have done to correct what i did wrong, because there is always a little of both and sometimes more than a little on both sides of that equation. as i sit here this morning, i think back over the past few weeks and i see that especially at work, i have done little to improve my relationships there, in fact, i can see that standing back, is not the way to go there, i need to get into the fray and take care of those as well.
in my relationships, that are closer to home, what i have been hearing lately, is how the people in my life are struggling with relationships in theirs. no matter how much i want to get into the middle of their conflicts, i know better, as it is not my stuff, and yet their stuff came up on my TENTH STEP last night, but was gone by the time i sat for my ELEVENTH this morning. no matter issues they are facing and no matter how good and quite possibly pure my intentions may be, i know that getting inside their stuff will only make things worse, for me, for them and for everyone else involved, as i do not have anything close to a complete picture of both sides. so i sit on the sidelines, i listen and when asked offer my suggestions and i watch the suffering take its toll, knowing full well how much it hurts me, when i am in that sort of state. when i cannot let go of something and when anything one person says to me feels like an attack on me, i get defensive, bitter and ready to bolt, as is my quite practiced reaction to conflict. what i need to do, when i regain a bit of balance is to forgive, and sit down and figure out with my sponsor or a closed-mouth friend, what the fVck, i may have done to create the mess i find myself within. the way of the steps is the only way i know out of such intractable problems, and what i have come to find out, is that yes, i do have a part, sometimes a huge fVcking part, in the problemat6ic relationships in my life. sometimes, i have to say i am sorry, even when i was in the right, and stop trying so hard to defend a my unassailable position. i mean seriously life is too short to walk around pissed off and cut off from those around me.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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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

5) The relation of the Tao to all the world is like that of the great
rivers and seas to the streams from the valleys