My 12 step program has given me the ability to look for the positive in people, to learn how to forgive and think of the world as a generally safe place.  As an alcoholic I’m generally full of fear, focus on the worst in people and hold resentments forever.

When I’m with my children or my family, positive thinking is fairly easy.  I love them, so I can easily find their good qualities and overlook their character defects.  It’s easier to overlook slights because I see their human condition.

At work it becomes more difficult.  I seem to be focused on getting the job done and running the business.  People tend to get in my way, not do what they tell me they’re going to do and just plain act stupid or lazy.  I spend the majority of my days irritated at some person, place or thing that slows down the idea of progress that I have designed for myself.  I forget about the people, people who have feelings, people who love and people who have pain.  I forget that they have an inner life and inner talk just like I have.  I forget that most of them probably have amazing stories of overcoming some kind of hardship or ailment.  I forget that in the grand scheme of things 100 years from now no one will remember the business that I did or the money that I made for the company.  What will be remembered is the compassion and love I showed another human being in the daily chore of doing business.  That love will be passed along to their family and friends and will one day cross the divide of generations.  There is no other work that is more meaningful than the way I treat people while I’m at work.

Since I’ve worked my 12 steps I supposedly have ceased fighting anyone or anything, but yet I still fight at work.  I fight for my place.  I fight to be recognized and I fight to be right.  I fight to keep business and I fight to do business.  My days are wasted on fighting.

What I’ve failed to do is turn it over to my higher power.  My only job is the footwork.  The results aren’t up to me.  Maybe it will fall apart, but if it does it serves a higher purpose and I must be ok with that.  My sanity and ultimately my sobriety are at risk.  We do not have the luxury of resentments like normal men.  We do not have the luxury to live a mediocre life of some good and some bad and let the chips fall where they may.  We are sensitive people.  Eventually the irritants and the resentments drive us back to the bottle.  We must live our lives aware and thinking of others.  When I don’t do that my self-will runs riot and my self-centeredness actually stands in the way of my own progress.

This week I’ve decided to focus on what is good about people.  I’m trying to find the good and verbally recognize it.  I’m working on gratitude for what they do right rather than focus on what is wrong.  The amazing part is I’m happier, my week is easier and I sleep better.  In a world where most of our business is done over the internet, we dehumanize people.  We forget there is a face connected with the name under the letterhead of our emails.

Just for today I will practice patience not knowing if something I do or say will be helpful or hurtful.