Sober since April 6, 2006

That's
days

Sunday, March 04, 2007

positively challenged

Step 4: "Took a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves."

It's really easy to see where I went wrong. It's more difficult to see what I've done right.

"So-and-so hurt me because I behaved this way ... I hurt this guy, I hurt that lady" -- it goes down a list a mile long. Eventually I start thinking "Yeah, I'm a bad person and I deserve to die in a fire." It's easy to fall into that mindset, and I have.

My sponsor told me to write good things about myself -- good things I did, good attributes I have. But it seems wrong to say anything good about myself. I've done good things, but so what? That's what people are supposed to do. They don't make up for the bad things I did or make me a better person.

I just don't feel comfortable trying to come up with anything positive. Some people can do that relatively easily ... but I'm not one of them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dont know if this will help,but the way it was explained to me and the way its written in the book is that the inventory contains the flaws(bad) in our makeup.The actual taking of the inventory is the good.See ya

Jackson said...

I'd find that difficult too. Maybe instead you could reflect and write about what is good in mankind. I catch myself nowadays marveling at the everyday signs of civilization and cooperation. I mean, just the houses built on my street 75 years ago! I think about how men and women work everyday, how they look after their children. Evil seems exceptional instead of the rule.

Then of course the inventory for myself is how selfish I was, not apart of this civilization...

Keep in mind what an accomplishment this is for all of us, btw. It's new life, being sober.

Anonymous said...

I hear & understand what you're saying. I want to share what someone told me:

"Acknowledging good things you did is really giving praise to God and how He made you special. Look at it this way, recognizing the good in you is transitively recognizing the goodness of God and the acknowledgement is spiritual hug that says "I love you God, you are awesome!".

An Irish Friend of Bill said...

A lop sided view of ANYTHING iS HIGHLY dishonest. A selective interpretation of things. Feelings aren't facts. This tendency just reveals your habitually lop sided view of yourself. to have a more realistic view, you will need to artificially encourage the appreciation of your habits untill it balances out. the closest thing to permanence is repetition, so you pretty much have to do this every day!