It’s not a good thing to not have a basic awareness of who you are. And even then, without proper perspective -awareness for most, is somewhat useless.

Every person who is successful has one thing in common:

“WHY”

But not your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill “why”.

You receive and then you do. You do and then you receive. Many times we want to receive first -and then we do. Many times in our relationships, we do not do until we have received first. In many cases, we lose what might have been given to us due to this faulty reasoning, due to this due to this stubbornness, due to this arrogance, due to this mistrust.

Chew carefully in your later years -no need to demolish food to swallow it if you change your diet!

I saw a sign in my dentist’s office many years ago that zip “Floss only the teeth you want to keep”. I say the same thing about working the 12 steps – Work only the one’s you want, designed to improve a specific area of your life that you want to improve.

Bringing awareness of things to people they are not naturally aware of -can be tricky! Even dangerous!

The difference between what a man wants and what a man needs is that what a man wants is “hit and miss” while what a man needs is always “on target”.

What a man wants:

•A man doesn’t always know what he wants;

•What a man wants isn’t always what he needs (often times, he in fact substitutes what he needs with… and his fellow man, greedy, power-driven, mad with envy… seems more than willing to accommodate him in (t)his endeavor);

•What a man wants isn’t always beneficial

The notion that you can’t trust anyone…

Is for people who refuse to take any risk whatsoever. Now then, you can’t be a positive force in the world without putting yourself at some kind of risk.

Afterthought: People who live by the rule “Don’t trust anyone”, either lack the ability to distinguish untrustworthy people from trustworthy people -or they’re too loathsome or lazy to even try. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♀️

To say it! (People do this one ALLLLL THE TIME)!

To do it! (People don’t do this one ALLLLL THE TIME)!

In the end:

People care about what you DO -not what you SAY.

People care about what you SAY -not (JUST) what you DO.

You point your nose downward, not too much of course, And turn that light of scrutiny on yourself -and more times than not, the person across from you in which you were on the verge of…, or in the middle of…, something very different inside of them will awaken.

Sidenote: When I first came in to Alcoholics Anonymous, I went through the process of working the steps with a Sponsor. One of the many amends I owed was to my brother. I remember approaching him on one particular occasion and telling him about how wrong I was about put in my hand over his mouth when he cried uncontrollably -after our mom and dad left for an evening out. That was something that could have been left out of the amends. As Bill Wilson says with regard to amends that either can never be made or should never be made in person; mentioned at all for fear of hurting that person once again, “If we are sorry -we believe we will be forgiven”. The old saying “live and learn” doesn’t always sit right (with me) ya know 😔.

It’s not the “brilliance” that matters most -it’s the “goodness” that matters most!

Sidenote: You take slaves for example, they are some of the hardest work people throughout history, and probably the least nutritionally fed-you think they’re taskmasters call taskmaster’s comments their slave owners were concerned about their nutritional health in many or most cases? And yet they were able to perform day-in-and-day out, year-after-year – 🤔 how does that happen?

Summers coming whether we like it or not

Winters coming whether we like it or not

All things come whether we like it or not; It’s only a matter of time; It’s only a matter of which order they come in -this is pretty much true of life and general.

I remember as a young boy taking the bus from Los Angeles to San Francisco to visit our relatives and thinking “I wish I could just fall asleep and wake up when we’re there”. Time seems to go by so quickly when one is asleep (That can be a good thing or a bad thing -It can be taken literally or figuratively).