Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Signs… Fault-Finding Mind
Question: “Outside circumstances that for me are just common sense situations like signs that are posted, and things like that. Like “do this” or “don’t do that” and I seem to be able to read them clearly and follow those signs and so many other people just can’t and it seems to really irritate me. It sticks with me for a little while.”
From the 12×12:
Page 45, last paragraph: “…Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people – people who really need a moral inventory. … we think our indignation is justified and reasonable…” *
Page 78, 2nd paragraph: “…tosspot calls a kettle black. Alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions. …start out by forgiving them, one and all?” *
Page 57, last paragraph, sentence: “all around forgiveness.” *
Page 58, last paragraph: “More realism… more honesty about ourselves. …how much trouble self-delusion had been causing us. If all our lives we had more or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be sure that we weren’t still self-deceived?” *
K.C.: When you relay something, when you’re looking at your life and you’re looking at something that may be bothering you, you’ve got to really listen, right? So, there are many signs that I pay attention to, that I abide by, but I look and other people don’t. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a sign that said “Smoke crack here.” I’ve never seen a sign that said “Drink and drive over here.” Yet we do those things and when someone doesn’t follow the speed limit or open a door, or parks in the handicapped spot all of a sudden we become “Hey! Hey! You’re not supposed to do that!” If they could only look in our past, in our memories and go “Hey! You’re not supposed to smoke crack in a closet either, buddy!” Weigh the mind out, right: Crack in a closet. A guy doesn’t stop a stop sign. “That’s WRONG.” We’ve got to get that perspective of “I don’t have the time or the energy to worry about what you’re doing.”
The only reason I worry about what you’re doing is so that I don’t have to look at me. And I’ll devise anything. I’ll start with road signs. Where does it go from there? Where does that thinking go from there? When I start looking at what you don’t do, but I DO do. And I forget. You know what else I forget? I forget everything that I did. I forget everything that I came from. It doesn’t make much sense for the tosspot to call the kettle black ever again. Not just one time. That’s a way of life. Man, how can you look at anybody else and what they’re doing…
So, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t live in that world where we start dismantling everything again, the minute we’ve got a little recovery. Because, even if we do, it’s not about “Oh, don’t do that.” You’ve got to go past that. What else is really going on? Because the signs and the people and them not doing things have nothing to do with what the disturbance is. You’ve got to go deeper. You’ve got to go beyond that. It’s like okay, “Signs, rules, regulations. What are rules, regulations? Where am I struggling with rules and regulations?” Rules/regulations may be work, may be career. Rules/regulations: society says you’re supposed to work, you’re supposed to provide things. Finances: rules/regulations, manage your money, live comfortably, have a car do things like that. Those things may not be happening. So, what do I do? I focus on people running stop signs. So that I can find fault with them because I’m too afraid that I’m not measuring up to the rules and regulations. That means that this is a program of failure rather than a program of success. Who set the rules and regulations up? A thousand years ago, you think they worried about stop signs? So it’s only a relative consciousness to a time that we’re in. The rules and regulations is the big one. It doesn’t have to do with the signs. Signs is also very interesting. Because signs mean what in one person’s life? Look for the signs. The signs of when you’re going wrong and the signs of when you’re going right. You’ve got to go past it. It’s always a deeper meaning. With everything that’s going on with me, when I’m in trouble it has much more deeper meaning than what I give it.
I’ve got to go past the signs because the symbolism: What does the sign represent, to me? A sign represents a way of operating within parameters that are normally set up to create harmony and order. So maybe the sign is really the disorder in my life, and I look at other people’s actions and the disorder in which they perform in externally. Because the disorder I’m talking about for me is inside. It’s just an example. It doesn’t mean that that is what’s going on. But, if we sat here and asked, “Okay, what’s happening?” What’s happening with the three primary instincts right now? How’s your money? How’s your girl and how are you feeling in the world you’re living in? Well, you just told us how you’re feeling in the world you’re living in, so what’s that? Social instinct. So, what’s going on with you socially right now? How are you fitting in with people? Who are you grooving with right now? Socially, what’s going on in your life right now?
ANSWER: “I have a girlfriend. I’m isolating. I’m not interested in large crowds of people and communicating with more than one person at a time.”
K.C.: You know, there are other factors, too… Being in a personal relationship at certain times in our lives, we get a bit of interaction, but it’s isolation, you see? That’s why we want the boyfriend or the girlfriend, whatever, so we can cut out the rest of the world. So, think about that. You realize that the social setting – he’s saying with HONESTY, thank God for his honesty! Because, if he said “Oh, no. Everything is cool in that realm,” everybody would be going “Maybe that isn’t it.” But if you look at it socially, and saying “I’m isolating.” What would isolation do if you’re isolating? Now you can take that a little bit further. I would start to look at the way the world is functioning when I’m in isolation. I come out, and it’s busy and there are signs and there’s order, and you’re supposed to this and you’re supposed to do that. “How come you’re not doing this? I’m doing this! You should be doing that! You know, why? Because those signs are there for a reason, why aren’t you doing that?” What is that? IT’S A SOCIAL DISCONNECT. And what am I finding fault with? As I look at those kinds of things, I’ve got to look at what’s going on with me.
