No Regret a useful tool

It's 11:00 am, I sitting here in my sleep pants, cup of coffee and smokes within short reach, I have finished reading my favorite blogs or checking to see if anyone has posted a new one. For the most part it is peaceful outside the library window, I call the spare room a library instead of office because my bookcases are in here, my bills go on the kitchen table until I need to review and pay them, a chore for today, my desk is a place for the laptop to sit and for storage, plus a couple of junk drawers filled with nails, wall hooks, batteries, small tools, misc repair stuff, so office just sounds to stuffy for me, library on the other hand is a place of peace, a place to read and a place to reflect which is what I do when I am in this room, I also have art work by Mich and N's youngest on the walls. So now you know about the room from which I write this blog and comment you yours.

I was awaken around 9:15 by a heavy rain, something we need since the air last night was heavy with moisture so hopefully the humidity will be less today, doesn't bother me but I get tired of hearing others complain about it. I save what little weather complaining I do for bitter north winds and temps in the teens and below, anytime the temp is above 40 I am happy. I don't like the cold at all but live in a cold state and will probably spend most of my life living in a cold state, I accept this because I love this cold state, it's people, it's culture, it's fairly laid back nature, it's friendliness plus my family and love ones are here. When I lived in the central part of the state it was a work of acceptance, I am liberal they are conservative, I think Limbaugh is an intolerant moron with an ugly soul they think he is a God, I love blues, folk, bluegrass and jazz influenced music with the exception of a small town radio station run by 2 old hippies my music isn't played west of Lincoln, I love ethnic foods and culture sorry folks but Mexican and bland Chinese just don't cut it for me, I like seeing and talking to freaks on the street in the coffee shop and at meetings out west they are a rarity and people laugh and point at them, I am not a Christian and people out west have a hard time understanding this, but I spent 17 years living in that part of the state I am a better person for it. Once I got sober and stopped using my differences as a "poor me I am so damn unique I have to drink all the time" BS, my differences gave me a chance for growth, a chance to practice love and tolerance even when I felt like I was being shunned or looked down on for my beliefs. There is no way I can truly understand raw prejudice felt my people of color or homosexuals but I have empathy because I have had small doses of it. Jesus talked about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies as well as our friends, the Buddha taught the same, I was given a chance to live these words and apply them in my life so I hold no ill feelings towards those with different views or ideals. Now that I am in Lincoln, I feel right at home. I am still living in my wonderful Nebraska but I am in the one city that I feel I fit in completely, God had a time planned for this and it materialized when things were right for me. I think about the drunken years, the alcohol fuel hatred, hatred of others and self, the poor Me's and it seems like such a waste but it wasn't, it was a part of the past I can't shut the door on because one can of beer takes me back there, no matter how good things are now the alcohol will turn everything black and ugly, that is how the demon works in me, it blankets out the sunlight of the Spirit. I am grateful for my past and my present life.

My new job is allowing me to use the tools of understanding and right speech, not to mention awareness. There are some clients who are suffering greatly from shame and guilt, well all of them are but there are only a few who are open enough to talk about it with the techs. I have been given an opportunity to explain the promise "we will not regret the past nor which to shut the door on it" from my own experience, the above thing with living in a small town is trivial for the most part. The shame I can share about is the shame that those of us who had children during our active alcoholism feel about the damage and suffering we created. I am not proud of how I treated my daughter or my parents, I am allowed to share this with the clients and explain to them I no longer feel regret for what I did, it was part of being a selfish slave to King Alcohol, I share that for me remembering how I treated my daughter and parents has become a tool for staying sober, it is part of thinking the drink through to the very end when the "wouldn't a beer taste good right now" thought crosses my mind, it is part of a mental collage which also includes jails and homelessness. One drink, a thimble full of alcohol has the power to ruin my relationship with my daughter, granddaughter, mother and the rest of the people I love and love me, that's some powerful stuff and I can never forget it. Another thing I am learning is to work with people who are very mentally ill. I have spent a lot of time with chronic alcoholics, both in and out of meetings, those sad cases that just don't seem to get "it", some have died and some are still existing. The people I work with are the ones Bill wrote about in Chapter 5 " constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" they are unfortunate indeed. When I did service work at the mental health hospital I was in brief contact with some like this but now I am spending hours with a few people like this and let me tell you campers it is very sad. It is sad when the director tells us that these people are severely mentally ill and to please show tolerance and kindness towards them, it is sad to talk to or listen to someone with whom reality is sometimes an illusion, it is sad to know these people aren't even 40 years old and the future is very uncertain for them. There is one kid who really knows how to work you, he is mentally ill, in denial and gets verbally aggressive when confronted, this posed a challenge to me last night, I let him rant and rave, tried to explain or show him how this thinking was a wrong, I was granted the ability to be assertive without being aggressive, in the end I told him to go outside and cool down, later when I checked on him he was doing alright. We can't change these people a great deal but we still have to give them feedback in hopes the a small kernel of what we say may sink in, to help in anyway we can and I also feel that what loving kindness and compassion we show them in some ways is healthy for them also. My prayer and mediation time prior to work consist partially of asking for compassion, loving kindness and freedom from the bondage of self, yesterday I was given the honor of practicing what I pray and mediate for, it seems like a big order sometimes for this ex drunk, it seems almost overwhelming and scary. When I asked to be of service to God and my fellows I wasn't aware of of how much God would ask of me but God has faith in me and my coworkers who give me assistance and work with the clients also, just like it recovery it is all about "WE", I must not count myself short or the gifts I have been given, the old insecure Scott wants to do this at times. I take refuge in the 3rd and 11Th steps, I take refuge in the teachings of recovery, I take refuge in the Living Buddha and Living Christ, without these I am a dangerous man in a job that requires applying these principles every second I am there. I have said this before and will probably continue to say this, I love this job and I am grateful to my God for allowing me to have it, for the spiritual growth it gives me and with spiritual growth comes personal and emotional growth, tools I can use outside of the treatment center when I am in contact with my family, loved ones, friends and society in general. Must add I make mistakes, I am not perfect but I do the best that I can do. I use to beat the shit out of myself for making mistakes, you people in recovery told me I didn't need to do this anymore, that God forgives me and I need to forgive myself, thanks to God and you I have stayed sober enough 24 hours to practice this most of the time.

On a lighter note, looking out my window this morning I get the joy of watching the birds dig around in the wet grass for bugs. I get to watch the tree rats (squirrels) run and play. My bird feeder is a hit with all kinds of birds, even the black birds and blue jays are being nice to the smaller birds, I don't see the cardinals as much as I would like but every once in a while I catch a glimpse of them eating out of the feeder. I also have 3 rabbits who visit my yard, I take the bird seed and broadcast it around for them also. Life is peaceful and serene for the most part, I did have a bit uneasiness yesterday but did the footwork to correct it, once again my mind was telling me a story that was untrue but the only way to find out the truth was to trust God and ask the person I was worrying about the question that was on my mind, anyone who read this blog probably knows who I am talking about, all is well like I said it was just my mind telling me stories and my own insecurities feeding the story.

Well campers, I need to get my butt off this chair, take a shower, do some work around the house, look at a pay a couple of bills and then head to work.

Peace Love and Light to everyone!! and if anyone hasn't told you they Love you today then I will, I love you all.
Scott

My job, My plans for future

As the busy season at work is dwindling down my afternoons are becoming longer with less to do, so I find myself thinking of things to write about. I am a buyer for a small manufacturing company, our business is Ag related so our busy season starts around September and ends in June, my primary purpose the afternoons is to answer questions or contact people for the answer to those questions, once in a while there is odd emergency order that needs to be place but for the most part not a lot happens. I don’t hate my job or the company I work for, they have been good to me over the years, they were big enablers in the later days of my active alcoholism and have defiantly support my recovery, they have let me take time off when I had stuff going on with my daughter, they provide a comfortable living and are easy to get a long with.

I have been reading some different blog’s lately and notice a common thread and that is not being truly happy in their jobs. This is something I can relate to and for the same reason, people and their attitudes and actions. For me what has happen is the long I stay sober and the more my spirituality grows the less I can justify working with people who’s words and actions go against my spiritual principles. Every morning I have to have a little time for pray and mediation because as soon as I walk into my office I am surrounded by negative energy. My boss has bent over backwards for me over the 10 years that we have work in the same office together but he is a very negative and pessimistic person. I will not and can not repeat his words of profanity and vulgarity, the demeaning way he talks about salesmen, engineers and others who don’t see things his way, yes he is selfish and centered to the max, he is also a sexist and racist. A couple of people in production are the type who are never wrong, everything they do is bigger and better, everything wrong that happens is someone else’s fault, anyone who makes a mistake that effects then is a idiot (that is a mild term) one of these guys works outside my door so I hear him quite a bit and the other comes into my office at break or for no other reason than just to BS with the boss. The rest of the employees are decent with the garden variety personalities. I have been in the manufacturing profession for 16 years with only one previous employer. The headaches of sales order ship dates not matching component lead times, the greedy emphasis on monthly ship goals, inventory errors, vendor errors, the fighting and back stabbing between departments has taken me to a point where I am ready to make a career change and one into a totally different direction. I am grateful for the spiritual opportunities I have received because of my mental conflicts at work. Because of my boss, I have learned to mediate at my desk or step outside and mediate, I have learned to hear and see nature on my trips outside, he has helped me to control my own foul month and work on Right Speech more strongly, to more closely evaluate my morals and ethics and work hard on correcting the errors in them, he has taught me to sit silently and not get caught up in the game, he has given me more opportunities to practice living the 12 steps of recovery and Buddhism than he will ever know. The 2 co-workers have taught me to think more about interdependence and radical acceptance so that I don’t start to mentally slaughter them with the double edged sword in my mind. I have learned to accept where I work and I am in no huge hurry to leave, I am not a huge risk taker and think things completely through before I make a huge life change, today’s economy isn’t safe enough to not think ahead.

One of the paths on the Eightfold Path is Right Livelihood. The worst thing that can be said bout my company when it comes to the effect it has on the environment, society and the world as a whole is that the product we makes assist in the application of harmful chemicals that are applied on crop fields. You will find negative and spiritually unhealthy people in most jobs, unless you work totally alone and then sometimes you are stuck with a negative and sick person too, so the personalities are not a big deal in Right Livelihood. I have stayed in this part of rural Nebraska for my daughter and parents. This is a great area for raising a child on your own even if that child gets into trouble it would have been worse in a larger city. My parents are elderly and my dad transcended last November, I have done what I could to assist them over the years. Now that dad is gone my mother is doing alright because she doesn’t have the extra burden of having to care for dad. Also my oldest sister said she would start assisting mom more. My daughter graduates from high school on the 17th of May and by the end of summer she will be out on her own completely, her plans are to move to Denver and attend massage therapy college, as much as I hate to see her and my grandbaby move that far away it is time she starts her own path in life with all the ups and downs. If she does go to Denver she will have to learn to take care of her own problems because dad won’t be handy to bail her out or fix something which will be good for me also. I have no interest or reason to move to Denver. At one time in my life I liked big cities but over the last few years I have become more and more Countrified, I like the slower pace, I like my open fields. My intensions are to move to Lincoln; Lincoln is bigger than where I live now, with ethnic restaurants, specialty shops, a bohemian community, a Zen temple, lots of AA meetings and a strong recovery community in general. I have quite a few friends down there so the transition won’t be too hard, plus I am fairly familiar with Lincoln. Job wise I want to use my talents for speech, insightfulness, positive attitude, experience as a recovered alky, to a practicing alky whose actions cause his daughter to become a ward of the state and more, to a recovered alky again whose life outstanding and whose daughter life is extremely better also. Lincoln has a lot of halfway house and group homes; there are also a few treatment centers there also. I do not want to be a counselor, I have seen too many recovered alcoholics and addicts go into counseling and suffer from burnout because they spent too much time working on others and stopped taking care of themselves. I just want to be around to assist where I can and give something back whether it be with new people in recovery or troubled kids, to me this is the proper use of the Dharma and 12 steps.

So that is my spiel about my job and what I hope to achieve in the future. First off I need to make some minor repairs to my house so can put it on the market for sale, once that is done I can use the money live on while I find a job in Lincoln and a place to live.