OneDayAtATime

Old 09-15-2009, 04:16 PM
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OneDayAtATime

I'm not getting this line of thinking? Al Anon literature and the One Day At A Time book, it says to stay in the present...the now. But who in their right mind doesn't look to the furture?

I asked a lady how on earth (assuming he is sober) we will ever have a marriage again after all the lies. She told me One Day At A Time. I understand that, but it doesn't seem practical. Don't "normal" people look into the future with their plans, dreams?
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Old 09-15-2009, 05:10 PM
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I like to think of the idea of living one day at a time like planning Thanksgiving Dinner.

The big day and big meal are like my plans for the future. Something I have set in my mind that I want to be really special. Through the year I go on as usual with Thanksgiving day in the back of my mind. As I browse the grocery store I watch for specials on the items I need. When one comes up that will get me one step closer to finishing my list of items, I add it to my cart. It does not change what I am shopping for at the moment and for the week, but it's a purchase towards my goal. As I complete my list and the time grows shorter to the big day, I begin to make those last minute preparations and get down to cooking. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I really kick it into high gear. I buy last minute perishables, set the table, defrost the Turkey, but all the while I still work, prepare my meals for the day, enjoy the fall weather. When finally I have met my goal and my guests go home with full stomachs and a carload of leftovers, I think of the next year and what I might like to change in my menu.

Living one day at a time and staying in the present isn't about not having goals or dreams of the future. It is about living in the day you are presented with and all its ups and downs but keeping those goals in the back of your mind letting it mold your decisions along the way to lead you up to acheiving those goals. Add that little something to your basket each day, each week, or each month to get you there but don't forget to feed yourself for the day.

I hope this might help. It seemed to for me when I was trying to understand it. I've been living alot for the future lately myself and finding I'm forgetting to enjoy my here and now. Thanks for the refresher course.

Alice
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Old 09-15-2009, 05:24 PM
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Originally Posted by whyamistaying View Post
Don't "normal" people look into the future with their plans, dreams?

I don't know the answer to that question. I come to Sober Recovery because I missed out on taking the "normal" life a few years ago.

Now, I recognize that I can not control the future. It has to unfold like a flower. I can participate, but I can not control it. My HP is in control.

I like Alice's analogy about Thanksgiving dinner!

For myself, I have hopes and dreams for my career. I am taking steps each day to work toward my career goal. I do my job today to the best of my ability. I look for the lessons along the way. However, should my path become obstructed - I will need to stop and re-evaluate. Instead of forging ahead, I am learning to wait for the answers to come. I tried to force my will onto a job offer earlier this year. I was talking myself into that job and forcing myself into that position. When I stepped back from being in control, a different job offer landed in my lap. A much better job offer!

I still have hopes and dreams, but I'm learning to enjoy the journey along the way.
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Old 09-15-2009, 05:35 PM
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My problems around this issue didn't stem from having hopes or goals or dreams. My problems came from thinking that I could actually CONTROL the future. And, along with that, CONTROL others. I was very rigid in my thinking that things HAD TO be a certain way. My focus was on how I WANTED things to be. So much so, that I had to deny to myself how things REALLY WERE. As a result, I felt I had to live in the future because the present was so miserable.

I posted on another thread about life being unpredictable. Sometimes we have to stop and re-evaluate. Things rarely turn out exactly the way I want them to. I can be angry and dig in my heels and keep going in the same direction, even though it's not working. Or I can take what comes and make the best of it. One way leaves me disappointed and unhappy, the other gets me peace and fulfillment. I don't have much control over what happens, but I have a lot of control over how I REACT to what happens.

That's my two cents anyway........

L
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Old 09-15-2009, 08:23 PM
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For me, One Day at a Time has several meanings.

You know those people who think that they won't be happy/successful until "XYZ" happens? Like, when my financial difficulties are fixed, I will be happy." "When I can afford a boat and a horse trailer then I will feel better." "When my husband gets well I can be content." All of my thoughts of happiness were FUTURE BASED.

What I am learning is that my happiness, my wellness, my recovery cannot come later. It can only come today. And every day. Each morning when I wake up is a new opportunity to make the choice to be well, or to make the choice to be miserable waiting on a future that may or may not ever get here. My children will change from today to tomorrow. I can't worry about how they'll be when they're 10 or 15 or 50. I need to pay attention to how they are NOW. My One Day at a Time means to me that enjoying my journey is my standard of success, not any particular destination.

The other thing One Day at a Time means is that some things are too painful to contemplate. Its like quitting smoking -- I couldn't think about how I'd feel if I never smoked again. I had to think about not smoking for the next five minutes. Once I made it through that five minutes, I'd think about the next. Soon I was taking it a whole day at a time. Today, I will not smoke. Tomorrow is too far away to consider. So it is with my codependent relationship. Today I will work on not controlling my husband's life. Just today. Tomorrow is not today - yet.
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Old 09-15-2009, 08:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Cowgirl1265 View Post
You know those people who think that they won't be happy/successful until "XYZ" happens? Like, when my financial difficulties are fixed, I will be happy." "When I can afford a boat and a horse trailer then I will feel better." "When my husband gets well I can be content." All of my thoughts of happiness were FUTURE BASED.
I know exactly what you mean. I started a thread about this once. I'm going to go find it and bump it up.....

L
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Old 09-16-2009, 04:46 AM
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my problems with staying in the moment are all about worrying and projecting into the future, working out all possible scenarios for unfolding events, extrapolating outcomes based on the flimsiest of evidence, and trying to do a myriad of things right now to cover all possible "bad outcomes", control, control, control......

so one day at a time means tackling that to me.

I have to combine it with "doing the next right thing". So that 1 day at a time does not mean I run around in an irresponsible state refusing to budget for obvious future expenses, nor do I stick my head in the sand over other things that have obvious and predictable consequences.

I have to stop obsessing on how everything "will be" because the fact is for complex things, especially those that depend on the will and behaviour of others, there is no way to know. The future is like chaos theory, butterflies flapping their wings leading to hurricanes, and it is only in retrospect you can see the connections.

I have a tendency to think in extremes:
e.g. If its good in this moment, it will always be fabulous, if it's bad in this moment, it will always be a disaster.

Clearly you can't extrapolate the future like that, so I have to stay in today for those things.

I have hopes and dreams, I also have plans and a general direction of travel that I think I would like for my life. But I need flexibility to deal with life as it rolls on in even if those plans and dreams then appear to become obsolete. That involves taking things one day at a time.

1 day at a time does not mean (to me) that I forget the past: I use the slowly unfolding patterns and evidence of what has actually occurred, and the direction of travel of events build a picture that gives me information about what I need to do today and more of (but never complete) idea about what the future holds.

1 day at a time does not mean (to me) that I stay in situations that are unacceptable just because right now is ok, or because I don’t know what the future holds. It does not let me off the hook with taking control of my life right now.

This is all hard, when I forced myself through the door of al-anon, and after a while started understanding how people were getting serenity, I understood that I was going to have to turn my entire way of looking at the world on it's head and thought that I would have to throw out everything I knew.

I wanted to freeze the world so that I could learn these things without ,life crashing on ahead around me. Good news was that I didn't have to be perfect at it, and the more I practiced and read and asked and reached out, the more the changes in thinking occurred, snowballing and supporting each other. Plus I didn't have to re-learn everything, some things just needed tweaking a little.
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Old 09-16-2009, 04:52 AM
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Originally Posted by LaTeeDa View Post
As a result, I felt I had to live in the future because the present was so miserable.

L
I also had to be told, and then accept, that I was ALLOWED to be happy right now, I didn't have to always accept hard times, and unfulfilling choices now for some illusary and never quite here "Jam tomorrow" scenario.
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Old 09-16-2009, 06:34 AM
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Great thread, thanks OP and for all who replied, because I'm finding a number of ways to think about this topic.

Living in today is so important. It is immensely helpful to read your personal perspectives on this.



CLMI
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Old 09-16-2009, 11:18 AM
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One Day at a Time means so many things to me.

Today is all I have, right here, right now. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring, maybe there won't even be tomorrow. So just in case there isn't, I have to make the most of what I have today. Anyone can be here today, gone tomorrow. I won't take it for granted, that I will be here tomorrow.

I used to spend countless hours and days worrying about the future and fretting about the past. It was exhausting and destroying me. I look back at the many things I worried about, conjured up in my mind, thought would happen, and how that I really never had any control over how anything was to unfold. It would be whatever it was gonna be. Some of the things I worried about did happen, some did not, and some maybe just haven't happened yet. Either way, all I have is today.

With the help of Al-Anon, and the slogans like "one day at a time", I have been able to look only at today, and what I can do with this day.

Years ago, when I first went to a Nar-anon meeting, I remember something in a reading about You wouldn't go to a hardware store expecting to find bread. I remember thinking to myself, dahhhh. . . . , or course I wouldn't, this stuff is stupid, I just don't get it. I only went for a few months, then stopped going. Fast forward about 9 years, and here I am again, same sh*t different day.

Decided to go back (this time Al-Anon, no Nar-anon in area), give it another try. Keep an open mind, what do I have to lose at this point. Now one year later, I see how much Al-anon principles have helped me. Sometimes not gigantic ways, but in small ways. Ways that have definitely helped me through this past year.

There are many slogans and they have been what has helped me through this past year. It's funny how just a few simple words, really can make a difference.

I didn't get it at first either. I just kept going back, because they said to. They kept saying "it works if you work it".

So .... just keep going back, keep an open mind, take what you want and leave the rest, progress not perfection.

Slogans was the topic at the meeting last night. Great thread.
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Old 09-16-2009, 06:19 PM
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I posted the comment below in another thread, but I guess it is also appropriate for here.

I have spent years having the following thoughts,
"one day I will"....",
"If this happens"....,
"When I have".....,
"If only I was".....,
"If only he would".....,
and other's that were dependant on future changes, that would make me happy THEN.

It took a heart attack this March, to get thru to me that I may not have a THEN or a future in which to wait for this happiness, contentment etc.

I have worked and am still working on being content, grateful and happy NOW, this minute, today. Not hoping for tomorrow to whisk me off into some magic Happy Land.

I did feel sad, angry, bitter and annoyed for having wasted so many of my nearly 65 years of YESTERDAYS, on wishes and hopes for happiness and fulfillment, dependant on some event that may or may not happen sometime, somewhere, whatever.

Then I realised that looking back this way was futile and was taking up time I had NOW to enjoy my life and be at peace with myself.

I wanted to live in an old style country house, on a few acres out of town, and having lovely flower and vegie gardens.

I am in a pensioner unit, in town and have a small back yard. BUT I have a beautiful little flower area at my front door, and grow luttuces, silverbeet, leeks, herbs, passionfruit, and a huge tomato bush with 68 big fruit on it.

I have accepted that this is where I am and need to be, and while I am hanging pictures on the walls, putting up new curtains, or what ever I do, I thank God for having this place to call home.

I hope I am becoming more like my mother, as she is happy and content with her life each day. She lost her central vision 25 years ago, could no longer read so learned to paint. She has lost all her old friends and family, but has their children still visit her, and has made new friends along the way.
She is my strength and inspiration at nearly 98 years young.

I learn from my past, live my present, trust in God and let tomorrow unfold as it will.

God bless
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Old 09-16-2009, 06:29 PM
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I LOVE your explanation Alice, thanks!
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Old 09-17-2009, 07:46 AM
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for this thread
JenT I particularly liked your posts,

If I think about "getting over ex and all the wounds" its just unsurmountable, but if I think of "doing the next right thing" I know what it is and I know I CAN do it...

I realized I learned from mom to see things "in the big picture" and use that as an excuse not to do anything or stay stuck... smalls steps... and even smaller steps.. but if I take the tiniest step even.. I am getting there...
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