Expectations

I was talking with a friend (with 25 years of sobriety) the other day and he told me that he was getting fed up with the meetings he'd been attending and was needing to move on and find better meetings. While I sympathized with him (and gave him some suggestions of some new meetings to try out), I also said that in the past I've had similar conversation with another friend with long term sobriety (33 years) who was getting ready to explode if he didn't find other meetings to go to, the one he was going to was driving him crazy!

What struck me about the second guy with 33 years is that the meeting he was talking about was one that I attended on a regular basis and one that I actually quite enjoyed. In fact, I include it in a group of a few meetings that I consider "home-like" in that I go to them regularly enough that everyone knows my name...just like the Cheers pub was home for Norm. Now, when he said the meeting was driving him crazy, I knew without him telling me what the specifics were underneath that frustration: people being rude during the meeting (talking while someone else is sharing), certain newcomers whining about the same stuff (again and again and again, day after day after day, week after week after week!), etc. I actually refer to that group as "The Wild West of AA". Great meeting, but I suppose not for everybody.

But for some reason, the stuff that was driving him to the edge of insanity and/or homicide, didn't really bother me at all...or not much anyway. Why was that? Today, I realized that it had to do with expectations. I was having very different expectations from meetings than my two oldtimer friends. They seemed to want order, politeness, courtesy, solutions, respect, etc. I just wanted to be there to hear solutions (or at least, problems that were calling out for solutions!), to meet/help other suffering alcoholics and most importantly, to see myself reflected in each person there (especially those folks that annoyed the shit out of me!), etc.

Anyway, I remembered something that once helped me massage my own expectations of others. It's called "The Paradoxical Commandments" and there are various versions of this floating around the Internet. Many of the versions are ascribed to Mother Teresa....but in actuality, they were written by a young man when he was in college I believe and who appears to be living with a long term resentment over the plagiarism being used by others with this literary work of his.... You can learn more about him and this by going to: http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/

Anyway, here's the version I committed to memory. I use it infrequently, but when I'm struggling with someone not meeting my expectations it's really come in handy!:

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered...
LOVE THEM ANYWAY!

If you do good,
people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives...
DO GOOD ANYWAY!

If you are successful,
you will win false friends and true enemies...
SUCCEED ANYWAY!

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow...
DO GOOD ANYWAY!

Being frank and honest makes you vulnerable...
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY!

What took you years to build,
may be destroyed overnight....
BUILD ANYWAY!

People really need you help,
but may attack you if you help them...
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY!

Give the world all you have,
and you'll get kicked in the teeth!!
GIVE THE WORLD ALL YOU HAVE GOT...ANYWAY!

Take care!

Mike L.