Friday, April 3, 2009

Contributing to life...


I realize in my previous article on work that I had several points I didn't quite get to.

The promise in our Big Book (p. 153) is:
It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy, respected, and useful once more. How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness? The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that!
We're told on page 86 in our nightly 11th step review that we're to look toward "...what we could pack into the stream of life?".

So much of what I hear in AA meetings is about "what can I get". I sort of use that as a litmus test toward a persons recovery. Bad, I know, that I should judge others at all but it does save a lot of time and effort in terms of what sort of conversation we might have outside the meeting.

The promise seems to be that I get to make a contribution - that, useless as I was (or certainly felt), by God's grace I now have something someone wants and have the opportunity to "give" it.

So, that's the real point of loving my work. I get to do stuff that's challenging, interesting and entertaining that is just way beyond what I deserve or even asked for. The fact that I don't get paid much for it right now is not my biggest problem - may not even be my business at all.

I am blessed...

...thank you...

Ed

2 comments:

Syd said...

I wish that more people had your wisdom.

Mary Christine said...

That is a great litmus test. I never thought of it that way.