The Moral of the Story

I've found that Life likes to pound me over the head again and again with the same lesson until I get it. It's sort of reassuring; there are no real mistakes, because I know I'm always going to get a chance to work the problem again. I'm finding that working the 12 Steps has given me an ultra-condensed version of Life: the same problems come up over and over again. And the 12 Steps are apparently feeling the need to wallop me repeatedly with my problems around rules and authority.

The Junky's Wife has been reading Kevin Griffin's One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, and she tells me that Griffin describes me perfectly when he describes himself as both a 5-year-old Catholic boy who wants to follow all the rules and a 15-year-old who wants to give everyone the finger. Now I have to dig up my copy of that book and make the time to read it, because that conflict has come up for me every step of the way.

I can't stand having anyone tell me what to do, yet I want to color inside the lines and make sure everyone else does too. I want to follow all the rules and I think all the rules are stupid. So, I've spent a fair percentage of the time I've been doing Step work feeling like a dog straining against a leash; I've roped myself to the rules only to spend huge amounts of energy struggling to break free.

But all this head banging against rules and authority has brought me to a very familiar place. It's time to stop thinking and struggling. The air is quivering and I can feel my hair standing on end in response to the lightning that's coming. I'm about to learn something, to see something differently. The moral of the story is almost here. The lesson is almost learned. I just have to wait.

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This post was originally published at The Second Road.