As Bill Sees It for 2/9/2013
 

Material Achievement

No member of A.A. wants to deprecate material achievement. Nor do we enter into debate with the many who cling to the belief that to satisfy our basic natural desires is the main object of life. But we are sure that no class of people in the world ever made a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics.
We demanded more than our share of security, prestige, and romance. When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion.
In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap was our lack of humility. We lacked the perspective to see that character-building and spiritual values had to come first, and that material satisfactions were simply by-products and not the chief aims of life.

c The AA Way Of Life Select Writings by Bill Wilson

If I love and truly care about other people, and show it in my actions, a by product will be a spiritual way of life. And a by product of a spiritual life might be material gains, it might not. If not, it probably won't matter so much, because one will be spiritually wealthy, and that isn't as finite as the material world.

I really liked this reading today. I am definitely one who wants the great things and I want them now and without effort. Of course that never happens in real life. Humility allows me to focus on making the effort to move forward and to accept that progress can be slow and will accumulate a little bit with persistence of effort. Humility: more work, more persistence, and less focus on expectations.

Indeed great reading today.. :)