To All Of Us, Who Made an Hour, A Day, A Week, A Year, or More

[JayhawkSD]

14. I'm going to do my rain thing again.

Rain is a bad thing if you're holding a picnic or a parade. Rain is a good thing if you're a farmer.

Actually, rain is just rain. It is intrinsically and inherently neutral; neither good or bad.

Good and bad are value judgements which we place on rain, and we place those judgements based on how the rain affects us. Rain is bad if it ruins my parade or picnic. Rain is good if it waters my crops.

Living sober and at peace with myself and the world requires taking myself out of the center of my universe. It means that I cannot judge everything by it's effect on me. Doing that is not bad or good, but it doesn't work for me. It creates anger, frustration, distress, and other conditions that lead me to drink to drown those feelings. I could live with those feelings if they were real feelings, but they are not real feelings. They are exaggerated feelings. The rain was not created for the express purpose of ruining my parade.

2017 was not a "bad year." It was just a year like any other year. Good things happened and bad things happened. Trump was not elected for the sole purpose of ruining my life. If I choose to let his election ruin my life then then the wreckage of my life is the result of my choice, not the result of 2017 being a "bad year."

I am not enslaved by events. I have choices, and that freedom, in large part, is created by no longer having myself at the center of my own universe. By not viewing everything and every event through the lens of its effect on me. That's been working and keeping me sober for 35 years now.