As I was driving home tonight, I twice looked in my rearview mirror after safely passing through an intersection to see a car behind me go through the intersection after the light had turned red. This is one of my pet peeves, and it's a symptom of alcoholism. Or at least of alcoholic thinking, because the only thing that feeding my pet peeves does is create righteous indignation (which is irritation about other's behaviors in order to make me look good to myself or others). And righteous indignation is one of the things that can lead a sober alcoholic or a clean addict back to using and drinking.
How can a minor irritation lead me back to drinking? Well, first of all, I was looking for it - indicating that the alcoholic within is still alive. I didn't happen to just notice it - I deliberately looked in my rearview mirror (which is always set to nighttime to make it harder to see behind me, day or night, because I've had the tendency thru life to look behind rather than ahead). Second, it can set up a mood - "my God, how unthinking must a person be? Why am I surrounded by idiots?" And so I start looking for more cases of inconsiderate idiots. And, as Jesus warned me, what I look for is what I'll get (Seek, and you will find - Matt. 7:7-8). So, 15 minutes after discovering the first two inconsiderate idiots (who are now safely at home enjoying their supper), I'm seething because I'm surrounded by inconsiderate idiots - I, the intelligent, rational, Ken, am once again alone in a world full of people that I can't relate to. And that mental/emotional isolation is the trigger for the next drink or fix. It really does not take much.
But sanity intervened tonight, as it has for the past couple of years. I asked myself, if pushing the envelope on yellow traffic lights is something that I need to be upset about, how upset do I need to be? Well, there are many large cities all over the world that employ the use of traffic lights, and hundreds of millions of people driving, and even if only a small percentage of people blast through red lights, a small percentage of hundreds of millions of people is still a pretty big number. So I can assume that at any given moment, some inconsiderate idiot is blasting through an intersection on red, making innocent people suffer. It's an incredibly huge problem! And one that I don't need to be concerned about.
PETA once sent me a letter of warning because they found out I was killing off most of my pet peeves by starving them to death. I recognized a while back how dangerous it is for me to feed my pet peeves - they'll eventually turn on me. Today I avoid undue irritation. I am grateful that some things that used to really. piss. me. off. no longer do. Not my circus, not my monkeys, so to speak. So allowing the larger pet peeves to die a slow death has left room for other stuff that I might find irritating, but isn't necessarily a pet peeve. Now, because I'm not in a continual state of pissed-offedness, I recognize when something or someone pushes one of my buttons. And because I can recognize one incident or one word that gets my goat, I can ask myself, "How important is it to me?" or "What am I supposed to learn from this?" or "What am I supposed to do with this?" It's not a matter of ignoring things that piss me off - that would only create a pressure cooker inside of me. It is a matter of me knowing that I have the power of choice today; today, I get to choose my battles. I no longer reside in a place where the majority of things and people around me irritate me.
Does this mean that nothing I see in the world should bother me? Certainly not! What I see outside of me is merely a reflection of what is within me, and if I see something that disturbs me, then I need to do something about it. But I need not attack - either what I see or myself. What I can do is seek to understand, and then ask the Universe (God) what I need to do about it. Last week I was to a planning commission meeting to advocate for something I feel strongly about, and last night I was at a city council meeting to advocate against something I feel strongly about. I've never been to meetings like this in my life before (except maybe in a middle school civics class). In both cases, I got up and said my piece. What comes of it will be what comes of it - but I did my part (so far) in changing something about the world in which I live. I think most of the time, however, the things I need to change are my own skewed perceptions.
Continued peace of mind, serenity, and happiness, which I believe are essential ingredients in my recovery, require cultivation. I cultivate a peaceful state of mind by understanding that it's actually easier, once I get the hang of it, to change my consciousness than it is to change my environment. And once my consciousness is mostly clear of problems that aren't mine to do anything about, I can focus my attention on what is mine to do. And that leads to an even more peaceful life for me, which in turn leads to actually feeling like I'm useful and I belong.
Isolation, fear, and loneliness are the cause of what ails me. The cure is connection, courage, and engagement - in whatever form that takes.
Namaste,
Ken
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