One of the great things I have done for myself was to be willing to consider that maybe I didn't know everything. Yeah, I know that sounds facetious but it's not my intent, I did believe I knew all I needed to survive. However the "Gift of Desperation" tends to suggest strongly to us that we need to find another way. The path we have chosen is not working and it's leading to our destruction.

This is known as having an open mind. I've heard it said that the mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's open. If you consider that analogy a parachute brings you to the ground softly, at a slower rate that a closed parachute would. I've also read of a famous philosopher who's favorite saying was, "I must consider that some of my answers are wrong". This man has been considered to be more intelligent than Einstein, yet he knew the value of an open mind. He even employed an individual who sole job was to remind him, after people were finished praising him for his amazing strategies, that he was just an ordinary man. I guess because he knew that falling into the fantasy of what others say about you can lead to ruin, whether it be true or not.

Most of my own growth has come by being willing to consider another's point of view. To "chew on" that perspective and see how it might apply to my own life. One such perspective was about what having an open mind actually was.

The definition that made it easier to have an open mind, even when mostly being "self" centered was that I didn't have to give up anything I believed. I only needed to consider if what I was hearing or reading had any application or benefit to me as a person or what I wanted to achieve.

When coming to the program of alcoholics anonymous and the 12 step process, as it says in the book, I had to throw several lifelong conceptions out the window. However this only needed to be done if I had had enough of doing things my way. If I haven't, then just carry on. But as the book so aptly says, circumstances will make us willing to believe. It certainly did for me. Living life as I believed it should be done led me, one step at a time, to sitting in a jail cell at the age of 25 facing a life sentence. A little loophole in Canadian law for a particular non violent crime. Talk about a wake up call!

That was an extreme however living life on your own terms can still be successful. You can become wealthy and own all the homes and possessions that you desire but true fulfilment does not and will not come from acquiring people, places, and things. That is easily obvious because that is why we have a 4th step inventory. We write about the resentments we have over people, places, and things! How these things let us down, and how we are angry and hurt by it. That the only way to serenity and peace was the need to let go of these things, or at least the desire to find our fulfillment in them, and seek true fulfillment from within.

The actor Jim Carrey said: "I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer."

The answer to life's many questions are a paradox. "To get, you have to let go. It is by giving that you receive." On an on.

If you're having difficulty just consider another person's suggestion, or another point of few. The mind only opens itself to new knowledge when the words are said, "I don't know". Even the Gift of Desperation" is a paradox. It can make us willing to consider another way other than our own. Open your mind to it. It might lead a way out of the darkness.

Enjoy your day

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