THE PAST IS OVER

 May 12, 2023

 

THE PAST IS OVER

 

A.A. experience has taught us

 we cannot live alone

with our pressing problems

and the character defects

which cause or aggravate them.

If. . . Step Four . . . has revealed in stark relief

those experiences we’d rather not remember . . .

then the need to quit living by ourselves

with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday

gets more urgent than ever.

We have to talk to somebody about them.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55

 

Whatever is done is over.

It cannot be changed.

But my attitude about it can be changed

through talking with those

who have gone before and with sponsors.

I can wish the past never was,

 but if I change my actions

in regard to what I have done,

my attitude will change.

I won’t have to wish the past away.

I can change my feelings and attitudes,

but only through my actions

 and the help of my fellow alcoholics.

 

**********************************************

Neither Dependence nor Self-Sufficiency

 

When we insisted, like infants,

that people protect and take care of us

or that the world owed us a living,

then the result was unfortunate.

The people we most loved often pushed us aside

or perhaps deserted us entirely.

Our disillusionment was hard to bear.

We failed to see that, though adult in years,

we were still behaving childishly,

trying to turn everybody–friends, wives, husbands,

even the world itself–into protective parents.

We refused to learn that over-dependence

upon people is unsuccessful

because all people are fallible,

and even the best of them

will sometimes let us down,

especially when our demands for attention

become unreasonable.

 

We are now on a different basis:

the basis of trusting and relying upon God.

We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.

Just to the extent that we do as we think

He would have us do,

and humbly rely on Him,

does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.

1. 12 & 12, p.115

2. Alcoholics Anonymous, p.68

 

*~*~*~*~*

You grow up the day you have

 your first real laugh at yourself.

–Ethel Barrymore

 

"Another flaw in the human character

 Is that everybody wants to build

 and nobody wants to do maintenance."

–Kurt Vonnegut Jr.