It was read out of the Big Book and discussed in the meeting I went to this evening.
It is always nice for me to hear: Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. When these crop up we ask God to at once to remove them.
When I read things like this I usually have one of two reactions.
Tonight I was thinking about how I have lately been getting pretty consumed with work (a personal favorite – with fear and selfishness driving that boat for me). Then while I was at work I had a chance meeting with a colleague that I do not like and in talking with her I understand she was getting into a very busy week. I offered, as part of my prayers have lately included pleas to be of service, to help her if she needed anything. That led to my agreeing to a two hour committment to do something for her over the next few days. Then she came back to see me 10 minutes later to tell me she was in a jam. Her husband (and one of my bosses) was stranded at the airport. The airport he was at had cancelled all the flights to the city he was trying to get to. The solution was for me to go pick him up and take him to another airport. I not much of a problem for me to do this, I was glad I had told her I could help her in our earlier conversation. Part of being fine with it is I knew this was part of the answer to my prayers. I was getting out of myself.
This ties into the 10th step for me because I can read that part of the big book, check what it has to say against where I am at, and today find that I must be doing plenty of right things. My latest work-induced run into self centerdness has not gotten that far out of hand yet. I was able to say I want to help, an opportunity arose, and I did what I was supposed to.
A much different, and the second kind, of perspective I can take away from reading this step sometimes is much different. I can come across that part of the book and it is a huge revelation. This is an attitude of “why does this make so much sense right now, and yet I seem to have forgotten so much of what this says to do” – for this past day or week or perhaps even longer! That is when I know I need to start taking some action, as the step says, and stop resting on my laurels.
I wish I was a person that could read something like the pages about the 10 and 11th step in the morning and actually have it stick in my consciousness throughout the day. But that just doesn’t happen for me. Fortunately I have been through enough AA stuff that I can be surprising well on a lot of days, and doing what I am supposed to be doing, with little prompting. So there is plenty that is working right. In some ways I am doing what the book says, even when I am not paying that much attention. These habitats have become somewhat engrainged. I am glad too, because I am told these things over and over. The brainwashing is working!
All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger