There is a ‘Just for Today’ reading from Narcotics Anonymous about responsibility. It starts with a quote which states that a lot happens in a day, both good and bad, and we have to appreciate both or we might miss something that helps us to grow. This is especially true for addicts – whether the addiction is alcohol, drugs or gambling.
That strikes me as a wise sentiment. Of course, we would all wish for all of our day to be good, and we do experience days like that in which everything is good in our world; in contrast, sometimes we have days where nothing seems to go right – and these can be lots of unimportant little things that frustrate us, or we can have an extremely painful day which alters our whole lives – such as losing a loved one, the break up of a relationship, losing a job etc – the painful life changing events. On the whole, we tend to grow more from these challenging experiences than we do from the good ones. Most days, however, are not life changing and contain a mixture of the good and the bad.
A Mixture of Experiences is Good
In truth, I do not think anyone would wish their life to be only full of good things with none of the slightly more negative experiences as without the latter we would not appreciate the positive aspects in our life. I love sunny warm days; however I know that I would not like to live in a country where it was sunny and warm all the time – I like the English weather and even though today is wet and cold, I enjoy the contrast from lovely weather. Similarly, winter is not my favourite season but overall I love the changing seasons, with spring being my favourite time of year when winter is over and there is the promise of lighter, warmer days. A mixture of experiences is good!
Responsibilities
The reading goes on to describe how many of us feel we have too many responsibilities and these sometimes wear us down. True, we have responsibilities as citizens to be law abiding; we have responsibilities to take care of ourselves and our families, we have responsibilities to get our children to school, to get to work, to look after our animals, to go to meetings and meet people etc. etc. However, in many of these cases we have chosen these responsibilities and actually if someone threatened to take them off us, we would be deeply upset!
Grateful
Recently I was a little fed up with all my responsibilities at work and the dynamics of my relationship with someone who worked there. I thought to myself that perhaps I should consider my options and get alternative employment. Then something happened and I thought the business might be going to fail. I then knew I did not want this to happen and how much I valued working there and wanted to make a success of it. I did not want to lose that responsibility and opportunity!
So let us be grateful for the ups and downs of life, for our responsibilities and for the opportunities that these bring. Do not retreat from them into our addiction(s).
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