Readings for each day of the week
Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 86 to 88; Step Eleven, morning
Friday
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
Saturday
In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
Sunday
We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
Monday
If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.
Tuesday
There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
Wednesday
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.
Thursday
We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
It works—it really does.
We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
Calendar readings
01 April 2024
A substantial percentage of the alcoholics I work with today have been sober for ten or fifteen years or more. They are in misery and struggling with painful conditions within themselves despite their long periods of sobriety. Just about one hundred per cent of the time, it turns out that these AAs either have not continued working all the Steps or never worked them to begin with. Either they have gone through the Steps once and then tried to get by on just Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, or they have managed to stay sober for years without ever thoroughly following the directions in Chapters Five and Six.
Invariably, when they start back at Step One and carefully work each of the succeeding Steps, they report dramatic improvements in themselves. They begin to experience the freedom and joy that are integral parts of our spiritual awakening promised in Step Twelve. It happens consistently. The only members I’ve ever heard question this approach have never tried it enough to understand it.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
02 April 2024
Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
03 April 2024
Rest in your defencelessness as a child of the Almighty Master of the Universe. The shadowed illusions of fear have shrivelled away in the brilliant light of God’s love for you. You cannot fail—success in all that you do is guaranteed. Keep saying to yourself; I proclaim God’s Divine Wisdom, Intelligence, and Courage, which, at this very moment, are guiding, guarding, directing, and protecting me. ‘You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.’—James Allen
Anonymous
04 April 2024
It is common knowledge that a return of the full-fledged ego can happen at any time. Years of sobriety are no insurance against its resurgence. No AAs, regardless of their veteran status, can ever relax their guard against a reviving ego.
Harry M. Tiebout
05 April 2024
Have you ever seen a bullpup chasing a bee? The pup sees the bee. It looks good to him. But he still doesn’t know what’s at the end of it till he gets there. It was like that with Bobbie. He fell in love, got married—with a sort of whoop, as if it were the greatest fun in the world—and then began to find out things.
P. G. Wodehouse
06 April 2024
So it is not only the rich and pleasure-loving who are worldly. The poor and those who are not enjoying life can be just as worldly. A person is worldly who says: ‘I mean to get what I can out of this life, and let not God, if he exists, get in the way of it.’ You don’t have to be rich, in the sense of attending the Cannes Festival, to say this; you can just as easily say it if you have to travel by bus instead of by Concorde. It is a matter of wanting this world more than the next, and of leaving God out of your calculations. Worldliness is the attempt to secure—and, having secured it, the enjoyment of—temporal well-being. Worldliness is leaving [spiritual] standards and principles out of account.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So to God
07 April 2024
‘Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.’
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle’s face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew’s grand words. ‘All it means,’ he said to himself, ‘is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.’
C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
08 April 2024
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men
09 April 2024
Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits that he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
10 April 2024
Continuing, fresh, growing experience in periodically working all Twelve Steps is quickly translated into specific help for others. It’s axiomatic that I can help another only to the degree that I’ve been helped myself. The more work I do on myself, the more I have to pass on to another. Today, I’m not talking about the Fourth Step I took in 1948 or the amends I made in 1949. I’m sharing the work I’m doing right now in our recovery programme.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
11 April 2024
The function of surrender in AA is now clear. It produces that stopping by causing the individual to say, ‘I quit. I give up on my headstrong ways. I’ve learned my lesson.’ Very often for the first time in that individual’s adult career he has encountered the necessary discipline that halts him in his headlong pace. Actually, he is lucky to have within him the capacity to surrender. It is that which differentiates him from the wild animals. And this happens because we can surrender and truly feel, ‘Thy will, not mine, be done.’
Harry M. Tiebout
12 April 2024
There was Bobbie, ambling gently through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a chump of the first water. And there was Mary, determined that he shouldn’t be a chump. And Nature, mind you, on Bobbie’s side. When Nature makes a chump like dear old Bobbie, she’s proud of him, and doesn’t want her handiwork disturbed. She gives him a sort of natural armour to protect him against outside interference. And that armour is shortness of memory. Shortness of memory keeps a man a chump, when, but for it, he might cease to be one. Take my case, for instance. I’m a chump. Well, if I had remembered half the things people have tried to teach me during my life, my size in hats would be about number nine. But I didn’t. I forgot them. And it was just the same with Bobbie.
P. G. Wodehouse
13 April 2024
I just depend on a lot of prayer and meditation. I believe that without God I am nobody, but that with God, I can do anything.
Dolly Parton
14 April 2024
Now that she was left alone with the children, she took no notice of either of them. And that was like her too. In Charn she had taken no notice of Polly (till the very end) because Digory was the one she wanted to make use of. Now that she had Uncle Andrew, she took no notice of Digory. I expect most witches are like that. They are not interested in things or people unless they can use them; they are terribly practical.
C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
15 April 2024
What is the meaning of ‘fighting against circumstances?’ It means that a man is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy.
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
16 April 2024
Trying is lying. I’m either doing it or not doing it.
Anonymous
17 April 2024
NUTS: Not Using The Steps
Anonymous
18 April 2024
The Steps will do for you slowly what alcohol did for you quickly.
Anonymous
19 April 2024
T Thoughtful
H Honest
I Intelligent
N Necessary
K Kind
20 April 2024
I sobered up in AA in August 1947, and the years since have repeatedly taught me that if the quality of my life is not what it should be, the best place for me to go for counselling or therapy is to the Big Book or to an AA member who has done enough continuing work with the Steps to understand that ‘how it works’ means this is how it works.
Paul Martin, Have We Forgotten Dr Bob’s Request?
21 April 2024
Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world (though its operation there is just as simple and undeviating), and they, therefore, do not co-operate with it.
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
22 April 2024
... there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this: ‘He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute.’
P. G. Wodehouse
23 April 2024
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s Tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
Edmund, King Lear
24 April 2024
Show me your schedule, and I’ll show you your priorities.
Anonymous
25 April 2024
STEPS: Solutions To Every Problem Sober
Anonymous
26 April 2024
A former member of a championship university crew told me that their shrewd crew coach often reminded them, ‘To win this or any race, row slowly.’ He pointed out that rapid rowing tends to break the stroke and when the stroke is broken it is with the greatest difficulty that a crew recovers the rhythm necessary to win. Meanwhile other crews pass the disorganised group. It is indeed wise advice: ‘To go fast, row slowly.’
Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking
27 April 2024
We can’t remove the buttons, but we can remove the circuitry, so that, when people press them, nothing happens.
Anonymous
28 April 2024
I was a very negative person. I had a problem for every solution.
Anonymous
29 April 2024
“Oh, I see,” said Polly. “And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won’t work for her. I mean it won’t make her always young and all that?” “Alas,” said Aslan, shaking his head. “It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”
C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
30 April 2024
The AA message is a message from one amateur to another. By profession, Dr Bob was a physician, but he helped alcoholics as an amateur. By profession, Bill W. was a stockbroker who helped alcoholics as an amateur.
Paul Martin, It Works for Me, around his 60th AA anniversary
01 May 2024
The degree of nothingness
is important:
to sit emptily
in the sun
receiving fire
that is the way
to mend
an extraordinary world,
sitting perfectly
still
and only
remotely human.
Sitting Poetry by Phyllis Webb
02 May 2024
Another false belief: Happiness is in the future. Not true. Right here and now you are happy, and you do not know it because your false beliefs and your distorted perceptions have gotten you caught up in fears, anxieties, attachments, conflicts, guilt, and a host of games that you are programmed to play. If you see through this illusion, you would realise that you are happy and did not know it.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself
03 May 2024
My job is not to set things right but to see things right.
Anonymous
04 May 2024
Plaintiff: She harassed me!
Judge Judy: Harassment is a conclusion. What are the facts?
05 May 2024
‘First and foremost, let’s not lose ground by growing spiritually slack or saying to ourselves, ‘I’ve put in enough time.’ Rather, let’s wake up each day and dedicate ourselves again as if it were our first day.
Albert Haase, The Life of Anthony in Egypt
06 May 2024
It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth.
Benoît Blanc, Glass Onion
07 May 2024
In Scoobie Doo, Velma struggling to find her glasses because she cannot see her glasses without her glasses is one of the most honest representations of real life in the history of fiction.
Anonymous
08 May 2024
In a Chekhov short story, someone is given a medallion that reads, on the two sides:
все проходит / ничего не проходит
everything changes / nothing changes
09 May 2024
People of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God. Surely, then, a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders. While the comment or advice of others may not be infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power Greater Than Ourselves.
As Bill Sees It
10 May 2024
I’m eighty-four years old today, and in all these years, AA has never deserted me, in spite of my frequent wanderings from the programme.
The AA message is a ‘spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps.’ The foreword to the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions says ‘AA’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practised as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.’ It Works for Me.
Paul Martin, It Works for Me, around his 60th AA anniversary
11 May 2024
‘I must not interfere a third time,’ thought Mrs. Munt. However, of course she did.
E. M. Forster, Howard’s End
12 May 2024
What God says is best is best, though all the men in the world are against it.
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
13 May 2024
You are not responsible for the programming you received in childhood. As an adult, you are 100% responsible for fixing it.
Ken Keyes Jr
14 May 2024
The first step in the process of forgiveness entails the recognition that what we have attacked and judged against in another is indeed what we have condemned in ourselves. This is the first step in reversing the process of projection and undoing its effects. As long as we maintain the problem is not in us but in someone else, our attention will have been successfully diverted from the source of the problem. The ego fixes our attention away from the guilt and, by convincing us that it is not inside us, we devote our attention to correcting the problem where it is not. All projection has this as its aim: to be a distraction or smokescreen so that we may never look within to where the problem truly is.
Ken Wapnick
15 May 2024
The Roman emperor Domitian was thought to be paranoid, having many of his senatorial opponents executed. According to Suetonius, Domitian’s chamberlain Parthenius, fearing that he would be next, orchestrated Domitian’s assassination.
Adapted from various sources
It is essential to realise that all defences do what they would defend [against].
A Course In Miracles
16 May 2024
Proud men don’t like having to look up.
The House of the Dragon
17 May 2024
Our time is growing short: those who have to deal with the world should not become engrossed in it. I say this because the world as we know it is passing away.
Universalis, adapted from 1 Corinthians 7:31
18 May 2024
We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the Most High.
St Gregory of Nyssa
19 May 2024
Daemon Targaryen: No matter how fat the leech grows, it always wants another meal.
The House of the Dragon
20 May 2024
‘And where are you travelling to, Mr Vertue?’ she asked.
‘To travel hopefully is better than to arrive,’ said Vertue.
‘Do you mean you are just out for a walk, just for exercise?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Vertue, who was becoming a little confused. ‘I am on a pilgrimage. ... The great thing is to do one’s thirty miles a day.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that is the rule.’
‘Ho-ho!’ said John. ‘So you do believe in [God] after all.’
‘Not at all. I didn’t say it was [God's] rule.’
‘Whose is it then?’
‘It is my own rule. I made it myself.’
C. S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress
21 May 2024
Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude.
Philippians 4:6
22 May 2024
Erbrose: It’s a meticulous, difficult procedure. Many maesters whose chains are heavy with healing links have attempted it and failed. But you succeeded. How?
Samwell: I read the books and followed the instructions.
Game of Thrones
23 May 2024
My true religion, my simple faith is in love and compassion. There is no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine, or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are—these are ultimately all we need.
14th Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium
24 May 2024
Always take the lowest place. Wear simple clothes. Help other beings as much as you can. In everything you do, simply work at developing love and compassion until they have become a fundamental part of you.
Patrul Rinpoche, Words of My Perfect Teacher
25 May 2024
Littlefinger: Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before.
Game of Thrones
26 May 2024
At its heart, Buddhism is very practical. It’s about doing things that foster serenity, happiness, and confidence, and avoid things that provoke anxiety, hopelessness, and fear. The essence of Buddhist practice is not so much an effort at changing your thoughts or your behaviour so that you can become a better person, but in realising that no matter what you might think about the circumstances that define your life, you’re already good, whole, and complete. It’s about recognising the inherent potential of your mind. In other words, Buddhism is not so much concerned with getting well as with recognising that you are, right here, right now, as whole, as good, as essentially well as you could ever hope to be.
Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
27 May 2024
The quality of prayer is not measured by emotional satisfaction, by the number of prayers said, by the ability to picture scenes from the Gospels or to meditate on theological mysteries. There is only one test: do you practise it and intend to go on practising it?
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So to God
28 May 2024
Rhaenys Targaryen: You desire is not to be free but to make a window in the wall of your prison.
The House of the Dragon
29 May 2024
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.
Ajahn Chah
30 May 2024
You are one of God’s works of art, and Psalm 139 states all of His works are wonderful. Therefore, you are wonderful!
Joyce Meyer
31 May 2024
Sandor: So what you whinging about?
Gendry: I’m not whinging.
Sandor: Your lips are moving, and you’re complaining about something. That’s whinging.
Game of Thrones
01 June 2024
The obstacles which are put in the way of prayer by the devil are many. The most common excuse for not persevering in prayer takes the form of ‘I’m no good at it; I have tried and after two minutes I’m distracted and there’s no prayer left.’ The aim is not ‘to be good at’ prayer but to give glory to God. No saint has claimed to be good at prayer; every saint has confessed to being bad at it. To have mastered prayer would be to have left out the main part of it, which is the continued effort to pray.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So to God
02 June 2024
A congregant went up to rabbi to complain that, wherever he went, someone was always stepping on his toes. The rabbi replied, ‘It’s because you occupy so much space that, wherever they go to place their foot, there are your toes.’
Anonymous
03 June 2024
Beric: Here we all are at the edge of the world at the same moment heading in the same direction for the same reason. It doesn’t matter what we think our reasons are. There’s a greater purpose at work and we serve it together whether we know it or not.
Game of Thrones
04 June 2024
Let your body settle, without moving about or fidgeting.
Let your speech settle, following the flow of the breath.
Let your mind settle, without pursuing thoughts or ideas.
Spaciously, from deep within, settle and relax in natural ease.
Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, Heart Advice in a Nutshell
05 June 2024
God has created every person in a unique way, yet most people spend their lives trying to be like someone else—and feeling miserable as a result. God will never help you be some other person. He wants you to be you!
Joyce Meyer
06 June 2024
Jon: The lord of light never spoke to me. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know what he wants from me.
Beric: He wants you alive.
Jon: Why?
Beric: I don’t know.
Jon: That’s all anyone can tell me, I don’t know. So what’s the point in serving a god that none of us knows what he wants.
Beric: I think about that all the time. I don’t think it’s our purpose to understand except one thing. We’re soldiers.
Game of Thrones
07 June 2024
Determining who we are or how we are doing in life by comparing ourselves to others will never give us a stable or reliable measure of our wellbeing, because comparative judgements always shift based on who we are comparing ourselves to. We do not need to live our lives measuring ourselves against external standards set for us by others. We do not need to limit ourselves to those options.
17th Karmapa, Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society
08 June 2024
The holy instant is really our continually practising and asking for help moment by moment, hour by hour, day in and day out. We ask Jesus to help us look at the world differently.
Kenneth Wapnick, The Present Instant Yonder
09 June 2024
I’m powerless over the sea but not the ship I’m sailing.
Anonymous
10 June 2024
Davos: Safety is never a permanent state of affairs.
Game of Thrones
11 June 2024
You can have excuses, or results. Not both.
The Bishop, Red Notice
12 June 2024
Another characteristic of great leaders is that they have their own personal role models. Every great mentor, teacher, or leader is also a student or follower of some sort. Before we choose a mentor, it is important to know who the mentor’s mentor is. A person who answers to no one is dangerous, possibly even a potential dictator. It’s a warning sign.
Manis Friedman, Creating a Life That Matters: How to Live and Love with Meaning and Purpose
13 June 2024
Robert Baratheon: I was never so alive as when I was winning this throne, or so dead as now that I’ve won it.
Game of Thrones
14 June 2024
Luke: All right; I’ll give it a try.
Yoda: No, try not. Do or do not. There is no ‘try’.
15 June 2024
Yet another vital feature that distinguishes leadership from celebrity has to do with the person’s relationship with God. Our sages tell us that God humbles men not by humiliating them or bringing them down, but simply by virtue of the fact that their greatness has its source in His divinity. The more deeply they appreciate His greatness, the greater and more humble they become. Humility is not a denial of one’s talents. Great leaders know their gifts, but do not claim credit for them; Moses himself was the humblest of all men. He knew that he would never have amounted to anything if not for the unique opportunities and the prophetic wisdom he received from beyond himself, granted from above. His greatness was part and parcel of his humility.
Manis Friedman, Creating a Life That Matters: How to Live and Love with Meaning and Purpose
16 June 2024
Catelyn Stark: If you are to rule in the north, you must think these things through, Robb. Answer your own question.
Game of Thrones
17 June 2024
The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chasidism, saw a lesson in everything. He once prodded an equestrian to stop horsing around and return to Judaism, but the man’s mind was on his horse. ‘See how it runs!’ he exclaimed. ‘It covers much more ground than the slow Shleppers!’ ‘But,’ asked the Rabbi, ‘if your horse takes a wrong turn, it’ll get lost faster than a slow horse!’ ‘Aha!’ said the horse fancier. ‘My horse makes up for lost time and returns real fast.’ The Baal Shem Tov beat him to the chase. ‘You said it! The same drive that led you astray can get you back on track.’
Chabad
18 June 2024
Questioner: How do we get rid of negative emotions?
Dalai Lama: Negative emotions are related to two things. Firstly, a self-centered attitude. I, I, I, my, my, my, ... like that. Another factor is we accept reality as it appears. ... nothing exists as it appears. So, since all negative emotions are very much based on appearances, once you realise nothing exists as it appears, that is ... wisdom. ... altruism is the antidote to the self-centered attitude.
19 June 2024
Lord Varys: Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.
Game of Thrones
20 June 2024
Successes in AA do things that failures avoid: attacking the toughest problem first. Pick fifteen minutes of your prime time (such as the morning before work) and promise your Higher Power that you will demonstrate your willingness to work this Step by showing up with paper and pencil for fifteen minutes, even if you don’t write one word. You will be amazed at how your inventory flows. We supply the pencil, and God does the writing.
Dennis F, Step Four
21 June 2024
The water does not mourn the collapsing wave.
Anonymous
22 June 2024
A conversation between a swordsmanship teacher and his pupil:
Syrio stepped back. ‘You are dead now.’
Arya made a face. ‘You cheated,’ she said hotly. ‘You said left and you went right.’
‘Just so. And now you are a dead girl.’
‘But you lied!’
‘My words lied. My eyes and my arm shouted out the truth, but you were not seeing.’
‘I was so,’ Arya said.
‘I watched you every second!’
‘Watching is not seeing, dead girl.’
Game of Thrones
23 June 2024
Inventory, like sobriety, must be put ahead of concerns like too busy a schedule, job demands, lack of money, and relationships.
Dennis F, Step Four
24 June 2024
A tailor agrees to repair a rabbi’s coat, but keeps deferring the deadline, each time saying, ‘God willing, it will be complete tomorrow.’ Eventually, the rabbi asks, ‘and if you leave God out of it?’
Anonymous
25 June 2024
Syrio: Opening your eyes is all that is needing. The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth.
Game of Thrones
26 June 2024
The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
Nor no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods
27 June 2024
Certainly it’s my privilege to use part of [the Steps], none of them, or all of them. Regardless of my approach, I’m still a member of this Fellowship. Tradition Three guarantees this. It seems to me that considerable confusion arises at this point, however. I don’t have to do anything as a member of AA. On the other hand, to follow the programme and get the results it guarantees, there are a number of things I must do.
It’s my right to use six of the steps, three of them, or none at all, but what I have then is something other than the AA programme. At that point, what, I have is my own invention. It’s a product of my own arrogant stupidity and my unwillingness, once again, to pay attention and follow directions ...
A fragmented programme will leave me fragmented. Using part of the prescription produces inadequate results. ‘Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to the simple programme.’
Paul Martin
28 June 2024
Aeron Greyjoy: A man agrees with God as a raindrop with a storm.
Game of Thrones
29 June 2024
Prayer was never meant to run smoothly, and even the effort to keep awake while praying is a part of prayer. It is the trying to beat off distractions which for most of us takes up a large part of our prayer time. As discussion is stimulated by opposition, prayer is stimulated by distraction. The mind is brought back to the main issue which, in the case of prayer, is the glory of God.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So to God
30 June 2024
Anytime there’s any element of expectation, or disappointment or displeasure, or whatever, then you know that the ego has crept in.
Kenneth Wapnick, Special Relationships
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