Life Happens - Dealing With Others

May 22. Hey everyone, Saturday was a long & unexpected day. I managed to make it through a work-day at my shop that was steadily paced & normally requires me to have the young man who has been working for me there for weeks now. Only this time I had to do it alone. In past months this would not have been so tall a task for me, the snag was that I nearly doubled my inventory & opened the actual space I have to manage & oversee to twice the number of pathways, tables, & customers. I got an opportunity to have 2 short breaks thanks to the kindness of a neighbor vendor, during which I was also able to buy some very beautiful new jewelry. I do have to say I was slightly dissapointed a bulk of the day, my alcoholic thinking was stuck on wondering why priorly faithful & thorough employee had not only stood me up to pick him up but didn't call to say he had changed his mind. Friday night he had told me he would be ready in the morning for pick up at our usual time. I still have not heard from him at the point of writing this tonight & I must accept that I am powerless over him as another person.. even if the only thing I'd care to change is his willingness to contact me with an explination. The reality of it is because I placed expectations on someone else, I allowed myself to be let down & build a resentment. One that I am letting go of as we speak.

The most important thing for me to remember when dealing with others is that "Life Happens". Just as my business is a serious part of my life & I make it a priority in my life, there may have been something deeper than my employee just not showing up for work. Anything from an emergency, a bad decision or feeling, or a simple mistake could have lead to his absence. Whatever his motive it is just as big a part of his own life at that moment as me needing his help with my business is to mine. I guess one could say in sobriety I am learning to grow not only spiritual principles into my life but also perspective itself. I don't need an explination, an answer, or the truth. All I need to do is accept what has happened & decide how I personally can deal with it on my end since I was affected. This is something I could never accomplish during my active addiction & alcoholism for many reasons too. The biggest part was the selfish & self-centered thinking that defines a majority of alcoholic actions, thoughts, & emotions. Me, Me, Me & how I was wronged. In the world of resentments many alcoholics cannot get past the part where they were wronged because they fail to acknowledge that Life Happens & it does not solely revolve around them.

So to learn to not take someone else's shortcomings or defects personally is a spiritual lesson I have found a need to adapt to. All to often in the past I would take it personal when experiencing or being affected by other's insecurities, actions, dissapointments, etc. The bare fact was that I did not like how circumstances, feelings, or actions in their life was affecting my own. It leads back to that selfish nature that I must change daily through asking my higher power to show me how I can live my day for others. Today I can be more considerate of the things that happen in other people's lives. I do not have to like the circumstances, but I do not have to resent them nor do I have to take them personal & build negative emotion towards whats happened. A word that comes to mind when people give into this, as in they take it personal & get involved with negative emotions, is DRAMA. Its a word that gets thrown around losely in society today, but its a situation I steer clear of as often as possible. If I were to be absorbed in the affairs of others & found a way each one affecs mine, I could be labeled the popular term "Drama King/Queen". Instead I am being taught to take a second look at myself, to see if anything within me has contributed to the circumstances & if its nothing to do with me or beyond my control.. then I learn to accept it. All of this takes practice & practice does not make perfect, that is an untruth we are told at a young age. Practice ensures progress, but never perfection. The 12 Step fellowships often have this claim which I will close tonight with, "We claim spiritual progress, rather than spiritual perfection." Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy