michaelg

They say opposites attract. Which I've found to be very true. Why? A one word question that is usually not very profitable to pursue in the spiritual realm. But, I've nevertheless asked myself on several occasions.

Yesterday, as I paddled my kayak down the river with a friend in recovery, I chuckled to myself at the seeming differences between us. I sit in an office banging around on a computer all day. He works with horses in the great outdoors. I track down and kill digital bugs. He tracks down and kills wild game. If we were a tree branch, these differences would merely be the first point of separation.

With each subsequent inspection, the limbs would grow further and further apart. Yet, this is a most gratifying relationship. One I throughly enjoy. One I much prefer over spending time with an identical twin. Why? The simple truth is that I need to know about more than my own personal interests. I need to know about things outside my immediate field of thought and vision. I need my beliefs to be challenged. I need differences to grow. Not only do I need these things, but, today, as the result of our program, I want them. I pursue them.

How does this tie in with sobriety? It was the situations where I felt forced to be around those I was different from that gave me much fuel for the fire. Rather than seeing it as a opportunity for learning and growth, I saw it as a pointless annoyance. And I drank at them. Ingesting the poison and waiting for them to keel over.

Having my life literally saved by some folks in the rooms, whose paths I would not have even crossed out on the streets, radically changed my perspective. It's given me a desire to seek out opposites. And shown me that while I should listen for the similarities, I also need the differences.