Life is a choice. Every thought, emotion, and action we take is linked to choice. It is true that there is much beyond our control – but control and choice are not the same words. In the very middle of the things we can’t control, we are still given choice. Denial and resistance, alcoholism and …
We live, so often, in a kind of trance. Alcoholism itself is a trance – a distortion of reality, a filtering lens, a weaving of denial and broken relationship with the world that covers our eyes like gauze. It’s a world of pretend and half life. It’s a feeling of frailty, mask wearing, separation. Always, …
“Everyone, whatever his condition, desires to be happy. There is no one who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that it is preferred to all other things; whoever, in fact, desires other things, desires them for this end alone….. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” Augustine, Confessions …
Step three is that deepening practice of awareness and acceptance, of taking life as it comes to you, and accepting yourself as you are. Listening to that boy the other day, I was reminded of how hard that acceptance can be. How hard our lives are. It is possible for me to fall into disillusionment …
