Draciack

ESH—

It’s incredibly sad how limiting self-centeredness is.

I was at a meeting the other day and listening to the stories I realized how little I actually hear what they say. I run their stories through a filter most of the time—how their story relates to me and my story, how I can use what they say to help my own sobriety, how I can apply their lessons to my life.

It’s not intentional. It’s implicit. I see them only as they relate to me.

And that’s sad, because there’s a lot more. My teacher isn’t just a teacher: he’s a guy with a girlfriend and a family and a disturbing interesting in Southern Gothic literature. But that’s him. And that cop who just pulled me over, same thing. Yeah, he’s writing me a ticket and yeah, it’s his job, but roles aside we’re just two people.

It seems so obvious that it borders on banal. Like, duh, right?

But that’s the problem with roles and maybe with stories in general. They make sense out of life but at some point they become really limiting. But the real problem is, sometimes I only see my own story.

I wonder – what role am I playing for the person across the room? What role do I play in his or her story?

Because that’s the thing. All the pieces fit, and all these stories and all these roles, they’re really just a small part of the whole when I think about it. And when I see people as they are—not just how they relate to me and my life—then a lot of stuff melts away: anger, resentment, jealousy, bitterness. Roles separate too. They put people in boxes and then the boxes reinforce themselves and all of a sudden I can’t relate to you at all because I’m this and you’re that and we have nothing in common. Except, you know, we’re human. So that’s cool.

But I place roles on myself too – the student, the alcoholic, the musician, the writer. Bad ones too – the screw-up, the perfectionist, the weaker kid. And then I feed those roles, look for things that reinforce the perceptions and discard the things that don’t, and it’s all just pissing in the wind so to speak.

Tomorrow, I can wake up and choose new roles. The past melts away like all those bad emotions. Not what I did and that sort of thing: just how I interpreted things. My story changes.

I was once a whiskey connoisseur. Now I’m a recovering alcoholic. And tomorrow who knows?

Letting go is hard to do. But when I embrace change, I’m far better for it.

Thanks for letting me share.

least

Thank you for sharing.

Anna

I think that the 'story' each of us has is the ego talking. Our ego desperately wants a story to hold on to. The ego identifies with things. The ego is all about illusion and is conditioned by the past. The ego is unconscious. When you can observe the ego you begin to go beyond it because the ego isn't who you are.

artsoul

Anna, you hit the nail on the head......

As long as we identify with the ego, we're only seeing the appearance of things. Once we question the ego's assumptions/perception, it means that another "self" in us is coming to the forefront.

Cool.....

julez

I relate to this. I just started going to meetings. I've been to exactly 2. And I kind of listen as I'm having an internal conversation with myself about myself. But I'm starting to "get it" about the concept of ego, and what roll it takes in the way we think. This is turning out to be quite the journey.

ChangeIsGood123

Very nice post. Thank you for it.

topspin

Drac,
Just wanted to "thank you" also. Gives me something to ponder.

Dee74

Thanks Drac

I spent a lot of years in my own head, and a lot of years willfully skewing my perception with alcohol or drugs.

I wasn't an evil man (I don't think) but I was a dark man, and I was self-centered and self-obsessed in the true meaning of those terms.

One of the unexpected benefits of sobriety was re-integrating into society, getting interested in people and just plain connecting with another human being, revelling in the similarities, not the differences.

Another unintended benefit was realising just how fundamentally constrained I was by who I thought I was, who I was told I was, and what I was taught I was.

I think I knew that - but I forgot it...or unlearned it.

It's great to remember it all really is a blank page.

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Henry David Thoreau

D

AmIReady

Wonderfully eloquent.

Gives me something to ponder, being in sales how much of my own life is like that or just percieved to be. But there I go taking what you say and attemping my own filtration

Wonderfully eloquent, thank you.

BobGT

Good post Drac, thanks.

That's so true. When I think back to some of my self-centered times, I feel kind of like I was a character in a play. It was extremely important that I get all my lines right, but the other characters were not my concern. That is a horrible way to go through life, but it is the manifestation of the isolation that addiction brings.

Anyway, thanks again Draciack. Your posts always make me think.

jamdls

Great post, thank you.