In the world to come they will not ask me, "Why were you not Moses?" They will ask me, "Why were you not Zusya?"
We grow in the direction of the choices we make. That growth depends as much on how we make decisions as on which ones we make. Often in the past we tried to model ourselves after someone we admired. Our self-confidence was poor, so we depended on others to let us know if our decisions were correct, or we modeled our decisions on how we thought others would decide. Now we see that we can never become exactly like someone else and we need not try.
To each of us, God gives a creative task and a problem - to take our special abilities and limitations and become whole men. We use standards for our choices based on our best ideas of right and wrong, of what fits with our inner feelings, and of what our Higher Power is guiding us toward. Unfinished and imperfect as we are, we become more peaceful as we become more fully ourselves.
May I be true to myself in the choices I make today? I am becoming the man that I admire.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
When we have a problem with putting things off, we seem to add to our troubles by mentally flogging ourselves. We know we are losing time. We criticize ourselves for our irrational behavior. Whether we are putting off an important task in our lives or letting many little undone jobs accumulate, we could benefit from stopping the self-criticism and asking ourselves for the spiritual message in our actions. Perhaps we need some quiet time to do absolutely nothing. Maybe our perfectionism is paralyzing us. Is an "all or nothing" attitude telling us if we can't do the whole job right away, there is no point in beginning? Unexpressed anger may be blocking us from doing what we need to do.
Whenever we find ourselves doing things that seem irrational we can ask, "What is the message from my Higher Power in this behavior?" This question will carry us much further toward spiritual growth than the mental criticism we are tempted to do.
Today, I will do what I can within the limits of one day, and I will stay in communication with my Higher Power.
To be a man means to be a fellow man.
Sometimes we become overburdened with frustration and disappointment in our lives. When we turn inward and focus only on our problems, we may be cutting ourselves off from the healing effect of contact with others. Today, there may be a new group member who would appreciate a phone call from us. Perhaps we could visit an aged person or someone who is sick. Help is always needed in providing food to the hungry. Perhaps a co-worker would welcome our assistance on a task or errand.
When we help others, we affirm our solidarity with them in their stress and suffering. We don't give help because we are better or without problems of our own, but because we suffer too. When we act as fellowmen, the comradeship and human contact we get provide us with as much help as we give. They liberate us from our own oppressive egos and make us see we are worthwhile men.
I affirm myself as a man when I stand in solidarity with others and help them in their need.
I am still learning.
Is it okay for a man to say he does not know? Our myths of masculinity tell us we are supposed to know all about how to be great lovers, how to do a job, how to get from here to there. We should never look confused or bewildered because someone will think we are weak. This is certainly a boyish attitude! How can we ever learn anything new if we can't look like beginners? That's the way to be an underachiever. In our growing up, we can shed these small ideas and have the strength to admit we don't always know.
Many of us have had the experience of growing in years without growing more mature. Having a sponsor is one of the ways we can clearly arrange to be learners. We can also learn from the fellowship of other men and women in our group. To be learners, we need to be honest and straightforward about what we already know as well as about what we do not know. When we are willing to be learners, we grow emotionally.
I will be honest about things I don't know so I can continue to learn.
One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.
In our all or nothing and grandiose lifestyles, many of us have had a lot of experience being heroes and being failures. Until we had achieved some sanity we didn't have much experience with being ordinary, genuine men. Many of us thought there was something fundamentally wrong with us. We tried to be great, and when we failed we felt less than human. Our shame in those experiences seemed to say we would never be normal again.
We are learning that being genuine is far more fulfilling than being great. We no longer have to swing between the opposite extremes of hero and coward. When we become honest with ourselves, we develop an internally respectful relationship with ourselves. That is when we become true men. The courage it has taken for us and others on this journey to become honest is heroic in the deepest sense of the word.
As I find the courage to be honest, I will become more genuine.
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
The primary requirement for our recovery is honesty. In order to grow in honesty we first needed to see how we had lied to others and to ourselves. This was not as easy as it first appeared. Our lies to ourselves kept us so fully in the dark that we did not know we were lying. We sometimes told "sincere" lies because we honestly did not distinguish the truth within ourselves. For so long we had preferred dishonest rationalizations, and we had come to believe them.
The spiritual life of this program is based upon experience. What we feel, what we see and hear, is what we know. When we simplify our lives and base the truth upon our experiences, we slowly cleanse ourselves of the lies we told ourselves. With this kind of honesty comes an inner peace with ourselves in whom we can say, "I know myself."
Today, I will accept my experience as a simple message of truth.
To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
We learn about ourselves by bumping up against something solid. By throwing ourselves into a project, meeting an obstacle we can't overcome, perhaps making some mistakes, we learn what we are capable of and what we are not. We are not here to live a comfortable and placid life. Our task is to grow and learn, to make a contribution, and to have some tranquility while we do. The only way we can achieve those goals is to assert ourselves, find out where the solid limits are, and assert our right to make mistakes in the process.
When we first learn to drive a car, we over steer and hit the brakes too hard or too softly. In the process we learn how to feel what is just right. When we are learning to ask for what we need and to make a place for ourselves, we may ask too demandingly at times. That is not bad. It is how we will learn to do it well.
Today, I will have opportunities to assert myself. I will take the risks required to learn.
