About Me

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I have recovered from the disease of Alcoholism. I believe there is only one person really,.. everybody. And that peace of mind is everything. -So treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself, because your neighbor IS yourself. I think most of recovery is what I would call common sense, but that learning to be ordinary is a true gift very few people acquire. My ambition is to accept everything unflinchingly, with compassion, and therefore be intrinsically comfortable in my own skin, no matter what. I am comfortable being uncomfortable and am willing to go to any lengths to improve my life. I believe the Big Book was divinely inspired, and is extraordinarily powerful. Unfortunately AA's best kept secret a lot of the time. (In my opinion). I just try to do what works, no matter what it is.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Service and getting motivated to go to ANY LENGTHS to study for a BETTER JOB. NO excuses!

Service is everything. it goes beyond outward action to the quality of ones heart, presence, and inner stillness.
These 'silent' qualities enrich others very powerfully.

Everything I do, say, think and feel can be service.
Meaning, In any moment, I am either taking, or I am giving.
But yes. sometimes practical help is needed. If I have free time.

Outward actions that help (for me) are prioritized by the potential benefit that can occur by doing them.
The more my acts have the potential to benefit others, the higher the importance of that task.
So attempting to prevent death is first.
Attempting to prevent premature death second.
Attempting to prevent unhappiness that has no impact on the longevity.
If longevity not an issue. then QUALITY of life is important.
So old and dying first. as very little time! 5 yrs?
Terminal illness, that I cannot alter. of any age.
Misery generally.

All these things I address in that order, by offering (in some form or other) how to practice (what I see as) spiritual principles. Although you might not know that I was doing that if you saw me doing it! But that's what I see myself as doing. I sort of 'sneak it in' while Im doing mundane stuff. Like at work. Which is mundane stuff. Sometimes I just 'hang around' (while I am at work) and be an example of an un neurotic person. Just that can really !! freak people out sometimes. Its quite funny really. Stressed people get freaked out by people ho have no drama. Heehee.

Don't get me wrong. Im not saying Im like this all the time. Im not. I get stressed and tense about things. But by and large that is how my priorities are in my head. That's what I mean. There is a structure to what comes first when choosing how to make use of my time at work, and if I have any free time to sponsor when I'm not studying, and doing my own life obligations.

Mostly it is aiming to prevent death due to (what I see) as untreated alcoholism, (which can look on the surface like madness, or pain, or depression) by trying to teach others what was shown freely to me.
Followed by attempting to show other women how to be good sponsors. So they can do the same.
Then the sick, old and dying in my immediate family.
Then the general misery I encounter on a day to day level at work, shopping etc..

Lastly I look to my study for a new job as a way to help others. I see jobs as ego feeding so this can be difficult.
Getting a high paying, 'swishy' job seems a bit bizarre and pointless. but I am trying to make into another way I can help others.
But this is harder for me because it involves money. seeing beyond the money, ego and position this might provide me with if I do it well is difficult. I lack !!! Motivation!
But I am working on it!
Its probably just laziness, and fear experiencing incompetence and failure outside my area of expertise, and looking c*ap while I do it.
The best workers are egoless, but the potential for money and status confuse me and really put me off actually.
My immediate family are outwardly successful but seem desperately unhappy, so that's kind of what puts me off. I sense a deep abiding pain in them when I am ever around them. That's why I don't want to spend much time with them. Perhaps I am just better at sensing their pain than I am in sensing others pain.
Who knows.
Or else they just have a greater debt of energetic baggage to process than others.
But Winston Churchill was a troubled man and I like him. So baggage need not put one off people. Well all that is my judgment of that situation. But I can find unhappy people very !! draining, so I avoid them, unless there is an ! important piece of service work that needs doing.

So service in the form of this new job I am studying for is my new 'project' in expanding my step 12 remit. Even though I LACK motivation to improve upon my position in a largely repetitive and brain dead unchallenging 'comfortable rut' job that I have been doing for FAR TOO LONG. Oh well.
I hope I manage it, because the 'carrot' (on the stick) of money, position, and social status have absolutely no appeal to me. But this could just be BS. My ego just hiding under the duvet.
One never knows. Most of my thinking and perception is utter BS.
Thank GOD, I know that I don't know. And just don't trust what my head tells me.

Basically I need to go to ANY LENGTHS to complete this seemingly limitless pile of coursework for the next nine weeks.
Scary!

Nine weeks of ANY LENGTHS study.
I need to 'import' the same focus and energy that I HAVE when I am talking to a newcomer, and TRANSPOSE it onto my study obligations. Which are huge. Or seem huge anyway.
Whatever. Just another journey out of the comfort zone, so same ol same ol.
!! Why are there no days off? Ever? There is ALWAYS something new. Something that you do SO APPALLINGLY that only the GREATEST effort will pull it out of the bag.
Well compared to the proficiency I can experience with aa stuff, my level of student expertise is very !! underperforming by comparison.
I'm not cr*p, but I AM crap, at just sitting down and GETTING !!!ON WITH IT!!

Discipline. Where is it? I think I am just a bit unmanageable. Too much the hippy. Too much 'whatever'. It is there with some stuff, but it is not here IN FORCE with the study.
Ah well. Another learning curve on the spiritual curriculum of life!

Todays (and for the next 2-3 years) Spiritual curriculum is:

'How to find a sense of urgency when you have NONE'
'How to (very sensibly) improve ones position in the job market when I have NO belief that outward conditions are responsible for my wellbeing. Basically that it will make NO difference'
'How to find a desire to have a reasonably prestigious job (compared to the one I have now which I dare say will not last very long) when you have NONE'
'How to desire a first degree, (or a good second) when you don't feel that bothered about getting one or not'.
'How to want better pay when you have no hunger to earn more."
'How to have faith in the skills you are learning, when it all looks like pointless mental loops that always miss the mark no matter how skilled one becomes, as it is tied to thought, which is in itself very limited'.
'How to WANT to do something WELL, that can be sought out because it appeals to grandiose instincts in people' BLEH. (Unlike my current job which is not even remotely grandiose.)

This Is an exercise in patience and tolerance towards the limits of these activities, more than anything. And laziness.
Just because they are LIMITED, or SEEM limited compared to step 11 stuff, does NOT give me the excuse, to be HALF HEARTED and LACKLUSTRE about them.
I need to give a s**t, basically.
Apathy! Toward what I see as kind of pointless stuff. That isn't really pointless. People who can do this job well DO serve others in MEANINGFUL ways because they help them GET OUT OF THE S**T.
They sort out problems for people. Using intellectual bags of tricks.
So there IS a point.
So I need to learn how to do this WELL.
So that when someone REALLY NEEDS help with this, (which they WILL), that I am S**T HOT at solving it for them using this new skill!!

See? I might just be talking myself into it!
Perhaps if I become very good at it but choose to do lots of free work for disadvantaged types, instead of getting a well paid job, that might work.?
But I LIKE the well paid ones, because they tend to be REALLY NICE people. (well that's what I find) More satisfied, more mentally alert, more functioning humans overall. Difficult tasks are VERY character building, so people in more sought after jobs tend to have better life skills than those at the bottom. They function better in all sorts of ways. So that's why I like difficult things, and I LOVE!!!! Being around people who are BRILLIANT at what they do. Why? because they are going to ANY LENGTHS. And I find that BEAUTIFUL and MESMERISING to behold.
But yeah, when there is money and status involved, then it can also attract those that value those things highly. But it is my OPINION, that the REALLY good ones, go WAY beyond that. They do what they do out of LOVE of the activity, or as a meditative task of doing.

See? This is why I despair sometimes. Because I can so easily be disappointed. I find myself always drawn to the people who are REALLY ! GOOD at what they do. Which makes me think I will only be TRULY satisfied working in that environment if I am around those kinds of people.
But in order to qualify for that I will HAVE to get a FIRST and work REALLY HARD for the next nine weeks, next 3 years?
But if I'm honest, I respect ANYONE who does this stuff, because it is difficult, and therefore character building.

Aha!
Another way to trick my brain into not seeing the money, (and therefore getting put off by the grandiose, status thing) would be to IMAGINE I am a person WHO NEED NEVER WORK AGAIN, but who CHOOSES TO WORK, to BE OF SERVICE.

So work of this kind would be a sort of a climb down, really.
I would be 'lowering' the quality of my life by taking part in it.

I actually know of people who are in this position. Not personally. But they have VERY FULL lives. Kids, you name it. They have NO NEED to work. Not like you and I do anyway. But they CHOOSE to do a REALLY IMPORTANT and REALLY RATHER DIFFICULT and DEMANDING job, involving LOTS of contact with rather ORDINARY, and sometimes YUKKY people, in an UNGRANDIOSE environment, despite having experienced (what I would see as) PRIVILGED LIVES. Long hours. Demanding situations. DIFFICULT to qualify academically for.
Basically, money is NOT what it is about, for them. Nor position. Or status. Just service. Even though they are paid very well for doing what they do.

So?
See?
What's my excuse? I DON'T HAVE ONE.
See I ADMIRE people like that. So why can't I do the same?
There are LOADS of STINKY charity things I could do with my expertise if I wanted to. But ultimately ALL work is service. Whether it is performed in a grandiose environment or not.
I am just attached to being employed in a very UN grandiose environment, where ego is considered to be DEEPLY UNFASHIONABLE. (which it is really)
But I do not really fit in there.
My mind is languishing in that environment.
My only way of amusing myself while I perform repetitive tasks is to look for opportunities to be of service to others and have a laugh while I go about my work.
And even though it is not grandiose, ego IS there. Just in a different form. It does not take the form of intellectual superiority, or grandiosity, but in the form of some competitive male posturing, and trying to appear 'interesting' or funny, as opposed to dull.
Plus it is a job that cannot sustain profit with increasing overseas competition. So it will die a death at some point in the next ? 5 years. Probably. Or else be replaced with a MUCH ! lower paid version. Well probably. Like HALF what I earn now or something. Or NO job at all because it is all being done overseas. Gawd knows. It does not look promising.

So I should be making hay while the sun shines!
Basically.

See?
I need to APPRECIATE the LONG TERM VALUE of what I am learning AND THE MEANINGFUL OPPORTUNITIES TO BE OF SERVICE THAT IT CAN! AND WILL! PROVIDE.

Despite SOMETIMES being performed in an atmosphere of grandiosity, or intellectual superiority.
IF !!!! I am motivated to study hard enough to qualify, that is!!!

No excuses!
(Like in the film The Pursuit of Happyness)
I NEED what Will Smith HAD in that film!!!

Exactly!
Improving oneself and ones life is IMPORTANT. Whether I like it or not.
Because I dare say I will always be employed in some form or other, so it is in my interests to have other skills under my belt.
So!!
Anyway just thought I would share that with you as that is the stuff I am resolving in my head these days, and thinking it out loud so to speak helps me organize my thoughts.

Right. Whatever. Better get on with it instead of doing this!!!
Jeez. I KNEW that would take FOREVER to explain!
Right. off now!
See you in ? nine weeks ? Hahahaa

5 comments:

Syd said...

Maybe a job is ego but I like being busy and feeling that I am doing something to help out the world. It is good to have various skills. I want to be able to have options and am looking at that a lot lately.

johno said...

I dont what it will be like, how much money I will earn, or anything til I get there, or whether I will be able to do whats required...

I have no idea what the future holds I know that I have been given this opportunity, and its my job to do the work set and its VERY exciting. I have absolute faith that whatever I will be given, I will be able to handle it, whether it be a 6 figure salary or not! As long as I am driven by Good and not defects or my own thinking, it will all be flippin' amazin!

Self will run riot and lots of reading of step 3 in the big book, all of it. Especially at the moment when there is no set timetable... its all about me, self discipline, doing the work when there is no one cracking the whip. Exam, I have to revise and attempt it, I have decided I will not get a good mark, so I will leave the revision til the last possible moment, to justify it, and tell myself I will do it different next semester... instead of just getting on with it now.

Less predicting the future and get back to today, just do the next week, and then the week after.

I sabotage myself.

Keep it simple...
No need to be scared, of money, prestige and property... its what you do with it and your attitude to it that really matters (in my opinion) Money is not evil. Arrigance and grandiose exists even in those without, who sit in judgement of those who do, without really knowing what they do with it. There will always be some who are grandiose, with and without money. You have had a spiritual awakening you have the choice thesedays as to your attitude to work towards, continue and improve as we all do.

We had a 2nd year give us 1st years a load of tips over coffee yesterday...

Stop thinking and just do it ya ninja.

Action more action. Enjoy the next bit of the journey.

For me, right now, I am in the darkest hour... just before the dawn, which will come after the exam on Thursday!

Thanks for your honesty :)

Anonymous said...

Life's relentless isn't it? Just keep doing the next thing in front of you. I can't think too much about the final outcome because it usually doesn't pan out that way. I have found so far in my recovery that if I do what's presented to me as well as I can and not let fear stop me taking up opportunities that fall in my path it works out pretty spectacularly. Retrospect is a wonderful thing also; how far I have come since finding this new design for living. Money, well, that ebbs and flows. My partner says everything we have is on loan, really.

Shadow said...

wow! and good luck for the next 9 weeks!!!

molly said...

I was (and still am) "outwardly successful" with a totally different story going on inside. I tend to be put off with the whole money/status "power tripy" thing too but strangely attracted to it at the same time. human i guess.. especially in the western world perhaps??

anyhoo - i hope you have a nice weekend. don't study too hard! and please come share more here ;)