Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Excitement - friend or foe?

I crave excitement in my life. I love roller coasters. We went whitewater rafting each year for 8 consecutive years until we realized we could just never get enough of it. I always love being on the ski slope, in an aerobatic plane, anywhere I can get a thrill I will generally move toward the "rush" as an activity given any choice at all.

I also love a loud and happy meal with friends, an enthusiastic meeting with lots of laughter, getting great news in the mail, getting compliments about how great I am, emotional stories of wondrous accomplishments of others.

I see (at least) 2 problems with this:
  • I generally feel I don't get "enough"
  • my life, in general, is not exciting
When I talk about this some with my AA friends, I get a lot of support for amping up the excitement level. Very few suggest that I learn to accept - even seek - a more quiet, contemplative life.

Yet, I'm coming to understand that this is really much of what my life today is about - making deliberate choices to allow for more "quietness".

So, I really don't think excitement, per se, is either friend or foe. I don't think I need to be biologically altered to turn off adrenaline or to not even indulge in the occasional roller coaster.

But, constantly living from one piece of drama to another is a part of my history that I really need to consciously identify drama that is not useful to either my primary purpose or growth and let that go.

Just sayin...

3 comments:

Syd said...

I like the quiet stuff. I guess that I don't have to have that adrenalin rush all the time. It's nice to chill.

Mary Christine said...

In my life, I understand why the big book talks about "the danger of excitement."

Scott W said...

I am big on serenity. Don't do drama well, was never schooled in it.

But I LOVE bacon!