(...) writes:

"I want to be good, and likeable, and righteous. It sucks to admit that
sometimes, I'm just not."


V writes:

Admitting our defects is not sucky - it is good. Admitting our defects
is Step 1 - for we are only as sick as our secrets. It sounds like you
are doing battle with being a virtuous person? Or maybe the battle is
more along the lines of being a "perfectly" virtuous person? This
reminds me of a quote by George Orwell, "Most people want to be good,
just not too good and not all the time. You can learn more about this
topic of virtue by going back to the beginning and study ancient Greek
philosophy. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as some of the lesser
know Greco Roman moralists such as Epictitus. I found much peace when
I stopped trying to be a perfectionist and accepted 80% to 90%
perfection as my doable goal with my life. Now, sometimes I do much
better and sometimes I do worse, but my goal is never to be perfect and
no matter how I end up, I work on doing better each day than the day
before. Perfection or Direction? Instead of getting lost in dreams of
PERFECTION - I now look at my DIRECTION. My goal is to maintain my
direction in the area I wish to head in, but while traveling in the
direction, there is much room or play available to me so I can relax a
little more while on the journey rather than if I was the all out
perfectionist. Perfectionism has destroyed many of an addicts recovery
programs as well as their lives. Perfectionism is EGO and PRIDE based.

I heard a story in a Yoga lecture that illustrated this point. "Range
is of the ego - Form is of the soul." The only thing we need to be
concerned with is how is our form when it comes to our life, our
spiritual practice and our recovery work - not the range. Naturalness
is another very important signpost for us to use as an evaluator to any
direction we take with our lives. For when we have to resort to
unnatural behavior it sheds light on what drives us. Is it ego or
wanting to be liked by others or fear of God or fear of karma or fear
of the bottle or fear of jail that drives us? There are certain
universal truths that apply to all, especially in this area of peace
generation. These truths are not based on God, on karma or going to
jail. I will send in a 7 page post on this topic "Finding Universal
Truth and Enlightenment" hopefully in the fall when I get some time to
rewrite it. Enlightenment can be summed up as the ability to see things
clearly and be at peace within and with all.

Do we always need an axe hanging over our head to show us the path to
peace? In short - if the 10 commandments did not exist, does killing
other people magically become transformed into a peaceful or life
promoting action for us? If the concept of karma was false - does
stealing or hurting another person now promote our peace now that the
thought of karma is not hanging over our heads? If the threat of jail
is removed from our backs, are we ecstatic and at peace now that we can
legally drive drunk? Are we relaxed and at peace after a rage blow up?
Do we need anyone or anything other than our internal peace to tell us
what is right and wrong - if we listen to it? No, there are universal
truths that apply to all irrespective of fear based foundations. I
found when I put my peace first, my actions become more natural and
less fear or ego based which in turn means I am more relaxed and
natural in all of my life's activities. Once your actions are more
peace based, life promoting, relaxed and natural you have arrived. You
are not fear or ego based as a driving force any longer. So, does this
mean you have to do this all perfectly? No, but like all things there
is a balance point and if we fall below it so goes our peace. Or, as my
father used to tell me, "you only get out what you put in." Sometimes
we get too busy to listen internally for peace awareness-this is where
VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY, MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS comes in. An old
Buddhist sage said, "Enlightenment comes from inertion not exertion."
We need to make time to listen within if we ever want to be peace
based.

Many times our egoistic perfection demands that we must be godlike and
never err. The problem with these addictive areas that require daily
participation in as well as life in general is this. These require
judgments and the concept of change and impermanence is all around us.
Since things are impermanent, judgments that work today do not work
tomorrow. In addition, even with our best efforts, when judgments have
to be made by humans, we can be guaranteed that mistakes can and will
happen sooner or later. Mistakes with judgments are especially common
with addicts, since there is not much room left in the practicing
addicts mind other than how to get drugged up with their next binge due
to living an out of balance life. If we base our self worth on
perfection, with no room for error, then our self worth absorbs the
inevitable mistake instead of a cushion absorbing it. To set our
recovery and our life up with no cushion for mistakes is unrealistic if
we want peace. Whether we are discussing the spiritual realm, virtue or
addiction recovery, we need to have some room to breath and allow
ourselves leeway to be human, have some fun along the way and
gratefully accept as humans we will never be perfect. There are 3
direction we can head with our addictions, our life or almost any other
area of change available to us. These three directions are: BETTER,
WORSE and FROZEN. I use these directions as signposts to help me stay
within boundaries and as reminders of work that is needed on my part to
stay on course - but my course has flexibility built within it.

In the book "The Posture of Meditation" by Will Johnson, he describes
three tools that every meditator can use during formal or sitting
practice as well as "working meditation" throughout their daily life.
These three tools are: ALIGNMENT, RELAXATION and RESILIENCY. These same
three tools are useful to addicts. The addict can work to be aligned
effortlessly with their program. This allows them to be relaxed in
their programs efforts or to be "natural" with it. And they have a
certain resiliency or flexibility built into their program with the "up
and downs" that are guaranteed to all things - living or inanimate due
to impermanence.

A Buddhist practice as well can be adopted by all persons seeking
peace.

My main focus of my Buddhist practice is concentrated on the 3 pillars
of Buddhism that are common to all schools of Buddhist practice:

1- Practicing mindfulness and meditation to develop peace and self
awareness of our own true nature.

2- Accepting the liberating wisdom of impermanence and practicing
non-clinging and a lessening of craving and desires. (CRAVINGS and
DESIRES? Isn't that what addiction is all about?)

3- The development of compassion for others.

Buddhists are not required to believe or not believe in God, so anyone
can make use of this philosophy irrespective of their religious beliefs
or lack thereof.







V (Male)


For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive
spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write:
vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not
the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.