HONESTY MONTH: DAY 3: “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it.” ― Patrick Henry
Yeah, there is a great deal of peace to be had with truth. I am a fan. I wasn’t always, but today I insist on truth.
About me, about you, about life. The interesting thing we need to remember, however, is the relativity of truth. Your truth and my truth may look very different. I am so fond of twisting the view to see all of life from every possible perspective.
And this means I have to relinquish my need for judgment. I got this after a few years around here, because I thought I was having a bad day. We all say this, we even talk about having bad hair days, which I find somewhat ridiculous.
But, I had to remember the relative irony of the worst day I could ever have imagined…and I do believe it was March 17, 1986. A horrible day! I was trying to kill myself on the freeway interchange! Actually, I was such a chicken shit I was trying to get a big truck to kill me on the interstate. And it went all wrong. About 6 hours later, I was checking in to a recovery home and my life is forever changed!
Today I celebrate that day with all the fervor I can muster. It is a huge guidepost for everything. A turning point, if you will. And I now determine the events in my life, based on before that day and after.
So, what the hell do I know about a bad day? Also, while I am writing in this vein, I need to also talk about trashing an entire day behind a few minutes of discomfort.
People say this all the time: “I had a terrible day; had a flat tire and got my hands all dirty, the was late to work…”, ad nauseum. Let’s look at this:
First of all, that is going to happen to all of us. Tires go flat. When was the last time you thought to say, “I had a great day…no flat tires and I got to work on time with clean hands????” Probably not. Life happens. We are going to be early, we are going to be late. There will be accidents and flat tires and dirty hands.
But, we also need to balance the scales by remembering what else happened that day. We fixed the tire, we washed our hands, we got to work (even if we had to walk), and could make up the time we were late without terrible consequences.
Even if we were fired, there is a certain amount of precedent that went on before this. Were those all bad days, too?
So, getting back to truth. What is the truth? We should really learn to examine it. In Step 4, we are going to do a lot of self-examination. Perhaps the best part is that we are going to learn to look at these things we write about in another light, another perspective. The judgments we have formed are probably not looking at the WHOLE picture. Recovery demands that I learn to expand my view and open my vision to embrace the entirety of the situations life presents me with.
So, I may say I had a different start to my day today. I had a flat tire, had a spare, thank goodness; and was able to complete my journey with the help of AAA or a friend. If necessary, I learned to change my own tires a long time ago. Grateful to use the AAA guy and happy to get to my destination, even if it was a bit late. We have all heard the ideas that perhaps there was something going on just ahead that I avoided because I was delayed. Sometimes it is a life saver to be delayed. We never know.
All possibilities exist in this Universe. It is important that I get to truth in the best fashion possible. By looking at ALL frames of reference and seeing every side of things. Recovery has proven to me that I am not qualified to judge a damn thing!
Dolphin Hug 