It takes a great deal of courage to look directly into the quality of your character- especially in your lowest moments. If there is one thing that I have learned about myself it is that I am capable of just about anything; heart warming compassion and mind blowing selfishness. It is impossible I think to abuse drugs and alcohol without engaging in extreme deception and dishonesty. First you lose the ability to be honest with your self. You drink, you use, you justify, you manipulate and you repeat- always repeat. Then, you let the deception spread into your family and friends. You start by hiding from others how important it is for you to use. Then you graduate to lying about how much you are using, how bad it is making you feel and ultimately how deep into the addiction abyss you have fallen.
I am not for this blog post going to share the
intimate details of my inventory, but I will say this… I am selfish. I have
lied. I have stolen. I have hurt people. I have committed crimes and I have
been a very mistrusting, manipulative and cynical man in my past. But at the
same time I have always been a good friend. I have been honest in the face of incrimination.
I have been brave in the face of fear. And I have tried to always put my family and my country above all else. I also know that who I am is not defined by
any one event or even series of events, but by how I act in each moment from now on.
When I look at the
contradiction and extremity of my emotional and moral spectrum it seems confusing. But on second inspection it occurs to me that given the extreme
nature of my personality it should probably not come as a great surprise that
other areas of my life and condition would mirror my intensity. The most difficult part of a fearless inventory for me is putting into perspective my personal drive to compete (selfishness) and my sincere effort to help others find recovery (selflessness). I refuse to talk about my efforts with The Superman Project- hopefully my actions here will stand on their own. But I will say that I am capable of
being very selfish, I know it. I have been so incredibly selfish in the past that it
shames me to simply brink it back into my conscious. But I have also been so
selfless at times that I have caused great harm in my personal life by putting everyone
else ahead of my own well-being. So what’s the deal? I will admit that I am
guilty of pushing back at times if confronted with an accusation of
selfishness. And it’s easy to argue persuasively against it. But engaging in this type of fearless look inside helps me to see the fallacy in arguing against being selfish- I can only own that I am and try to do better.
So what did I learn in the hours I spent looking into my soul? Well, I learned it’s painful to look honestly into your own behavior and strip
it down to its base layer. But what the hell- this is recovery and the one thing we cannot do
this without is honesty. I am both selfish and selfless at times. Kind and cruel. But I strive to balance these forces and ultimately behave in a way that I will put on the "good side" of my balance sheet next go around. We are complex beings to say the least and I will not attempt
to transcribe for you (or me) the navigational morality of human behavior. I
will say that I have looked deep into my soul. I have seen the dark in me, the
bad in me, and also the light and pure parts of me that I would like to pass on
to my children. I am human- I am flawed
and I am a better man today than I was yesterday. One more step, one more mile, one more time…
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