For Today: April 12th

For Today: April 12^th

Blind and naked ignorance

Delivers brawling judgment,

Unashamed on all things all day long.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

So you have a problem? You’re tired? Have a headache? Need more money? I had the answers. Go to sleep. Take an aspirin. Work harder. Sweet solutions you could not have figured out. There is little sensitivity to others in self-centeredness. Today I talk less and listen more, and even allow silence in the air. When someone asks a question now I can say, “I do not know.” With those words comes the relief of realizing that answers are not a measure of my worth. That is self-worth where it counts the most.

For Today: I listen to another’s problems with sensitivity, but I share only my experience, remembering that what is good for me is not always good for someone else.

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Therein lies the rub. I have many people coming to ME for answers, for some reason. I don’t HAVE all the answers, either, because if I DID, I wouldn’t NEED a program of recovery to stay sane. Sigh.

I work with a woman who lives with the results of her bad decisions on a daily basis. If there is a bad decision to be made, she will make it.  Teenage son having trouble? She ignores it. Husband not giving her all she wants? She berates him mercilessly.  Then she wants answers & advice from ME!  I listen to her go on and on and ON about the bad decisions she CHOOSES to make every day, and I have to listen with compassion & NOT say too much. I have to protect MYSELF and my PROGRAM. Free advice gets me nowhere, and besides, nobody listens to it anyway! 

When I’m asked for advice by my sister or my co-worker, I try very hard to tell them what I would do in their situation; not what THEY SHOULD do.

For today, I pray to stop giving advice & to start listening with more compassion & understanding.

For today, I pray to recognize the fact that I am NOT here on earth to fix other people’s problems.

For today, I pray to recognize the fact that my Program is #1 and other peoples’ issues fall into the secondary concern category.