Resentment and fear

A lot of people in AA, years sober, still spend a lot of time in resentment and fear.

The Step Eleven review can sometimes foster this, as it encourages us to talk about both. Meetings can do the same. There can also be a collective counter-signing of this in AA. Because the phenomena are widespread, they are accepted.

However, there has got to be a point where we grow up and stop blaming people and circumstances for our emotional woes.

We've been given a solution. There is no justification for resentment or fear.

There is justification for observing what is wrong in the world, and taking reasonable and appropriate action to fix it, but not for resentment, which is a childish refusal to accept that reality is reality.

There is justification for prudence, caution, and evasive or sometimes defensive measures, but not for fear, which is a refusal to accept that certain things in life are just going to hurt.

Resentment is essentially obstinacy; fear is essentially cowardice.

I have had to stop resisting reality, and I have had to embrace pain as an unavoidable component of life.

Then, there is the rest of the world to attend to. There is to much too do to sit around complaining about my feelings and thwarted egotistical desires.

Watch the news. See how much suffering there is. Make a resolution to fill your days with activities to try and alleviate that suffering, whether close to home or on a larger scale.

God has no hands but ours.

Thank God for growing up!