A LIFELONG TASK“But just how, in these circumstances, does a fellow ‘take it easy?’ That’s what I want to know.”
~ TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 26 ~I was never known for my patience. How many times have I asked, “Why should I wait, when I can have it all right now?” Indeed, when I was first presented the Twelve Steps, I was like the proverbial “kid in a candy store.” I couldn’t wait to get to Step Twelve; it was surely just a few months’ work, or so I thought! I realize now that living the Twelve Steps of A.A. is a lifelong undertaking.Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc
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A.A. Thought For The Day
A.A. teaches us to take it easy. We learn how to relax and to stop worrying about the past or the future, to give up our resentments and hates and tempers, to stop being critical of people, and to try to help them instead. That’s what “Easy Does It” means. So in the time that’s left to me to live, I’m going to try to take it easy, to relax and not to worry, to try to be helpful to others, and to trust God. For what’s left of my life, is my motto going to be “Easy Does It”?
Meditation For The Day
I must overcome myself before I can truly forgive other people for injuries done to me. The self in me cannot forgive injuries. The very thought of wrongs means that my self is in the foreground. Since the self cannot forgive, I must overcome my selfishness. I must cease trying to forgive those who fretted and wronged me. It is a mistake for me even to think about these injuries. I must aim at overcoming myself in my daily life and then I will find there is nothing in me that remembers injury, because the only thing injured, my selfishness, is gone.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may hold no resentments. I pray that my mind may be washed clean of all past hates and fears.
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Today, grant me the wisdom not to pervert “Take It Easy” into procrastination or neglect of the new responsibilities that sobriety has given me. “Take It Easy” affords me not only the luxury but the necessity to tend to my own spiritual and emotional care lest I be unqualified to help someone else with their own. Adversely, “Take It Easy” does not bestow “permission” to put off or ignore responsibilities to myself, others and the 12th Step edict to carry the Program’s message to the alcoholic who still suffers. The Program shows me how to balance the scale between taking it easy and procrastination, and if it’s weighted down by taking it easy at the expense of responsibility to myself and others, I am as irresponsible dry as I was when I was drinking. Today, I seek that balance between taking it easy all the time and giving all my time to everything and everyone else. And our common journey continues.
Step by step. – Chris M.
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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
—Chinese proverb.Life holds so many choices now that we are sober. We’d like to go so many places. We’d like to see so many things. We have so much to do. We are slowly learning how to trust our dreams and reach for them. Our program teaches us that we live One Day at a Time. We make progress by doing First Things First. Easy Does It. Our dreams may seem very big and far away. We wonder if we’ll ever get there. But our faith tells us to go for it. And we know how: one step at a time.PRAYER: Higher Power, help me know this gentle truth: my life matters. Help me set goals that I can grow toward, one step at a time.ACTION: Today, I’ll think about one of my goals. I will list ten little steps that will help me get there.
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August Today, grant me the wisdom not to pervert “Take It Easy” into procrastination or neglect of the new responsibilities that sobriety has given me. “Take It Easy” affords me not only the luxury but the necessity to tend to my own spiritual and emotional care lest I be unqualified to help someone else with their own. Adversely, “Take It Easy” does not bestow “permission” to put off or ignore responsibilities to myself, others and the 12th Step edict to carry the Program’s message to the alcoholic who still suffers. The Program shows me how to balance the scale between taking it easy and procrastination, and if it’s weighted down by taking it easy at the expense of responsibility to myself and others, I am as irresponsible dry as I was when I was drinking. Today, I seek that balance between taking it easy all the time and giving all my time to everything and everyone else. And our common journey continues.
Step by step. – Chris M., 2014
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