Some memes

often eludes me, when i CHOOSE to follow a path based on self-centered self-interest and ignore what i suspect might be the next right thing to do. more often than not, after a few thousand days clean and living a program of active recovery, i **know** what the next right thing, to do, might happen to be. i could say that i “hear” the “voice of GOD,” when that is the case. as arrogant as that last statement may sound, it feels fact-like and not some sort of twisted version of manipulating my perceptions to do what i DESIRE to do, regardless of the cost. when i pause and allow myself to “listen” for that voice, i often make better decisions in the here and now. is that allowing GOD's will to become my own true will for myself, or just sound, living in the moment practices.
all of that is quite nice and yes it is true that my conscience might be seen as being a manifestation of GOD's will made real. i do not however, walk around on a spiritual cloud of grace, shielded from what the world throws at me. nor do i always CHOOSE to do the next right thing. i am a very human individual, who happens to be an addict in recovery, born to white male privilege as part of the last generation that could EXPECT to be more successful than my parents. it would be quite easy to throw my lot in with the current racist and misogynist political forces, as i see the world i was born into, slip away into something unfamiliar and fraught with peril in an ever-changing landscape. what i “feel” is that i will be taken care of and as hard as i try to defer and delay the decision to allow that to happen, by working a formal THIRD STEP, demonstrates how easily i could slip into supporting the MAGA politics that are the source of strife in society today. no magic words or incantations will make me safe. politics of the oligarchy disguised as being for the common man, is a cruel and unusual punishment being inflicted upon my world by a shill for the one percenters, who is clueless that he is being used.
when i go down that dark path, it is easy for me to despair and not see the light in the world. it is only through the program of recovery i find the HOPE to carry on and do my part to resist the notion that maybe there are “alternate truths” and that i am not being manipulated into doing something i will regret. it is when i pause and allow myself the opportunity to feel, rather than react, that i GET to align my actions with then will of the POWER that fuels my recovery. in that quiet moment,i see the light and at times it is blinding and spooky. nevertheless i can strive to live in that light and as i often do, or choose trip down the cynical lane of dark, hopelessness. today, as i get ready to head on down to work, i choose the former, at least for right now, we will see where my morning commute takes me.

∞ DT ∞