“Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means. It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up.”
- from Step Ten of the AA Twelve & Twelve
Isn’t it cool that program literature frequently parallels current situations, emotions or thoughts? Only recently have I started to see others as vulnerable, flawed people. All my life I’ve assumed everyone had life figured out better than I do. As I mature and my focus shifts outside myself more, I can see that everyone else is making it up as they go along too.
Lately at work I watch the guys in charge as they work out problems or chit chat near my desk. It occurs to me that no matter how old they are, they probably aren’t that different than they were in their mid-twenties. Sure they have more experience and some of them have quite a lot of power, but they aren’t some other type of person. I have some nutty assumptions about the world. The steps and working my program have brought some of them out into the open for me to evaluate. Somehow I believed that grown ups, were somehow different, other, outside my understanding. This of course is nonsense.
I think I’m starting to understand people better which allows me to be kind and less angry. Now if I can just remember that before I get upset by stuff. I still tend to react to stressful situations. I may not act like I have in the past, at least not for very long, but it would be nice to head it off before it begins.
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