Doing Life

[Angel09]

Quote:standing up for what's right

I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS.. I'VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD "DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR HAPPY" MAYBE I'M TAKING IT OUT OF CONTEXT!! HMMMMM!!

[citychik]

Quote:I'VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD "DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR HAPPY"

I've had to think about this too Angel. In AA it is said "do you want to be right or happy." In that instance I think it applies to wanting to be right to feel just that bit superior to the other guy/gal.

What came to mind when I read your post relates to getting and staying sober. When I found AA and sobriety began to look like it was going to stick, quite a few people around me became disturbed/aggressively resentful. Maybe, my sobriety caused them to see their own addictions for what they were? Or possibly, they could no longer take comfort in thinking "well I'm not as bad as her" anymore?

Either way, there was a certain amount of outside pressure to give up my new way of life. I didn't, and today some of these people are clean themselves.

My husband is 9 months clean this month and he always insisted he'd be on methadone for the term of his natural life. I wonder sometimes how hellish our lives would be today if I'd decided sobriety was just too much like hard work.

So yeah, in that instance I stood up for what was right, for me, and it had a flow on effect that benefitted others as well.

I think that's what the reading is on about.

[Rusty Zipper]

awesome reply city!!!

woops, jojo...

you got me all juiced up!

[Butterfly Woman]

(07-11-2009 10:05 PM)citychik Wrote:  [QUOTE]I'VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD "DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR HAPPY"

I think it is also referring to peer pressure...listening to that inner voice being the right thing to do but often in our past we went with the flow of the crowd just to be able to fit in yet knowing whatever it was they were doing was wrong

In a meeting hall in Nevada City California there was a poster that made an impact on me and I still use those words today. It said..."Stand up for what you believe in even if you stand alone."

[Angel09]

Thanks C.C... I see what you mean about your situation. You stood up for what you believed in and that was sobriety, which I think was commendable. I know a girl right now who is struggling, because her husband is still drinking. But she's hanging in. Which is the right thing for her to do at this moment. What I really think is that, if your taking a stand for your sobriety, that's really all that counts. The rest is "BULLSHIT"!!

[Butterfly Woman]

Great pic!!!

[citychik]

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace.

Hugh Prather


What do we use our power for? Do we try to manipulate the world, making things turn out the way we feel they should turn out (for the good of everyone, of course), trying to make everyone act as we think they ought to act and to make everything turn out just so? If we do act this way, guess what? We're setting ourselves up for failure after failure, for there's really no way that we can make others act the way we want them to or to make sure that everything will turn out the way we think it should.

We can use our power instead to ensure that we're doing the things we know we ought to do, that we're behaving as we should, that we're giving as much as we're able to the world. We can use our power to spread love and encouragement and words of hope. We can use our power to be there when others need us. We can use our power to love unconditionally, instead of putting conditions on the love we share with others.

We have enormous power to know peace. We have great power to be happy. But when we use our power to try to control things that are out of our control, that power is wasted.

Our "walk home" can be very simple, depending on where we are and what we try to do with the ample power to control our own destinies that we've been given. We're not here to push others in directions in which we think they ought to go--we're here to be ourselves, to live and to love, to be and to share.

It really is rather simple.

~~~~~~~

..a further thought.

To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others
bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of
the person who begs his or her daily bread.

Charles C. Colton

[Rusty Zipper]

yep, walk 'n trudge

[Butterfly Woman]

and accept

[citychik]

The highest and best thing that people can conceive is a human
life nobly and beautifully lived—therefore their loyalties and
energies should be devoted to the arrangement of conditions
which make this possible. The sole issue is how to make this
world a place conducive to the living of a noble human life,
and then to help people in every possible way to live such lives.

John H. Dietrich


It's a very nice thought, but what does it mean to have a "human life nobly and beautifully lived"? I think each of us would define that idea for ourselves. It would be very easy to get caught up in a discussion about what we mean by such a life, but doing so would keep us from looking at the rest of the passage.

John says that the only issue facing us is how to make the world into a place that will allow us to live such lives, no matter how we define them. He says, in effect, that it's up to you and me--and everyone else on the planet--to make this world into a place where we can live nobly, and it's up to us to help others to try to live nobly.

And when you think about it, what would our lives be like if we were to spend our time and energy trying to turn this world into a noble place and trying to help others to live nobly? I believe that if I did that, my life would without a doubt be a noble life, one that I could be proud of on the day I die.

People often keep us from focusing on the incredible beauty and wealth of this world, and we spend a lot of our time and energy just getting by. There is a higher calling, though, a higher way to live and grow and reach for new levels of thought and deed. How do we make this world a better place for all, where all might live nobly? We give, and we give, and we give some more. And no matter how much we give, it will be worth it.

~~~~~~~

....a further thought.

It is the individual who is not interested in his or her fellow people who has the greatest difficulties in life and and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.

Alfred Adler