I'm putting Saturday's blog up a day early. Will be back by Sunday. Hope all goes well for each of you this weekend.
All my life, I have complicated simple things. I'm so good at that. I'll do things backwards, without even thinking about it. It comes naturally for me.
I remember the first time my mother had me iron and she tried to correct my backwards position. I would do it her way only when she was around. When she would leave, I'd iron anyway I wanted.
I happen to be 'mostly' right-handed, but will thread a needle the opposite way of right-handed people. I wear my watch on the opposite hand that right-handed people normally do. I've had quite a few people comment on both of those things over the years.
I began to say in my forties that I had an affliction called, 'dyslexic living'. This always elicited a laugh from the person it was said to, but I'm not sure they really understood what I meant by it.
I would say that after one is an adult, we shouldn't blame anyone anymore for things done or not done to us as we were growing up. Accountability and responsibility to one's self must begin to kick in somewhere along the way in order for one to grow and become productive in their own unique way. I've shed, or shrugged off, a lot of things in my life. I haven't investigated the reasons why I am the way that I am. It doesn't matter. 'I yam what I yam.'
I think we are all too hard on ourselves. There is a passage in the Big Book, AA's bible that I would quote directly from but I have no idea where my Big Book is. Haven't look at it or read it in years. But I did spend a fair amount of time for close to ten years trying to absorb as much of it as I could. Anyway, the passage speaks of how when we focus more on the good than the bad in our lives, then the bad begins to lessen in its importance, and the good begins to thrive.
Sometimes I feel as though I beat a subject to death, I mean like some type of insane rage that just keeps pouring out of me. Get a Grip! Take a breather. For God's sake, it's not the freaking end of the world if I don't understand everything that happens. But I can't help but want the information about any given situation because it's important to me to know why things happen the way they do. Anyway, here I go again. I'll stop here with this line of thought.
A simple key in this acceptance process is to know that these unfortunate, miserable, embarrassing, fearful moments ARE going to happen and that they are a natural process of life. Where did I ever get the idea that if I was living a certain way, or did certain things, that I would somehow win my immunity against hardship?
I see things in other's lives that are not good either. My problems may seem petty to them and my defects may not be even half the size theirs'.
Basically, the way I see things, when I am in a jam, is to remind myself that if I stop to wonder what I am doing, that's probably a sign that something needs my attention. Maybe a change needs to take place.
When I'm kicking along, and life is beautiful, all is good and right with my world, I don't have thoughts about anything but digging the place where I am. So, wouldn't it be logical to think that when I do have those times where I am questioning things, that I should take the time to notice?
© D. Leeson 2005