Recognizing that I need power and getting it

I think Freud was wrong. I don’t think insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I think true insanity is doing something knowing full well the outcome will be bad and then doing it anyway. That’s insane. That’s addiction. And that is about 1000 forms of acting out that many of us do in order to escape even though we have plenty of experience to show us that in the end we are hurting ourselves and helping no one.

In my previous entry on this topic (entitled “Clean”) I finished off by talking about the powerlessness that whether we want to admit or not, we have no control over other people, places, and things. Of course I am not the first person to point this out and I won’t be the last. I learned this from others and i will continue to pass it on to other because I have seen the benefits that come with truly understanding this principle for living. It is a basic truth. You can dispute it, but you are deluding yourself if you do. It’s like saying 1 + 1 does not really equal 2! Then I come to a place in my experience that I realize, even if I could, why would I want to spend my life controlling others when I have myself to focus on? There is so much I can do for myself when I am focusing on that instead of trying to change other people whom I am certain would prefer not to be changed by me in the first place. How many people get into relationships with others thinking they can change the other person. Mold them into whomever they think their partner “ought” to be. Of course “ought” is a very big word filled with a world of implications that I really don’t even want to get into.

Here’s the core issue on Step 2 of AA’s twelve steps. Most of us are basically defiant. We do not like to be told what to do and we certainly do not like to be told how to do it. Do you see the irony here given what I’ve just laid out in the previous Paragraph? I want to tell others how they should be, but I do not like to be told that myself! So what am I looking for really? A Power greater than myself. Greater than any human power. I have to be willing to believe that there is a power within me that is infinitely greater than any obstacle that will ever be placed in front of me. That’s the power I want for myself. That is the power that enables me to move way past the behaviors and actions of other people and way into my own behaviors and actions. When I am treating people well life will go well. Not everyone will respond in kind, but all I have to do is believe in this power and know that the way others treat me is entirely a reflection of who THEY are and not whom I am. With this knowledge securely in place it bothers me less and less when others act like idiots and I feel better and better as I realize that one, I don’t have to act that way, and two I don’t need to allow people like that into my life. I can simply move around them in life and keep moving forward. This is not arrogance nor is it intolerance. It is simply a matter of choice that I am very much entitled to make that I do not need to be around negative people.

In the business world this translates very simply. As long as I am working for someone else I am somewhat, if not extremely limited here. I may in fact be forcibly subjected to people I would prefer not to be around because someone else has seen fit to hire them. The illusion is that I am stuck there. The reality is that it is my choice if I want to stay in that environment or move on and begin to create my own. I chose to create my own and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t scary, but I would also be lying if I said it wasn’t the second best decision I have ever made in my life. the first was choosing to get clean. In making that choice I had to go through this process, which included coming to believe in a power greater than any human power in order to be restored to sanity. Now let’s face it. If I have lived past the age of 30 and haven’t lived in a bubble then we’ve all experienced some form of trauma or another in our lives. In some cases we have been embittered by those experiences. Others were intuitively better able to handle these situations, but one thing that I believe is universally true is that we ALL engage in behaviors that can be self destructive when we are having any kind of bad experience. In other words we all do things to act out when we experience our very human lack of power. Maybe we over eat, or we over indulge in sexual activity. In some way shape or form we grab onto these crutches in order to escape things that make us feel uncomfortable. Maybe we work obsessively – burying ourselves in it to avoid the rest of the world. These are all examples of things we do when we are confronted with our lack of power. Lack of power is human. Power is super human. So when I tap into a power greater than any human power, what does that make me? You guessed it. I can be super human as long as I recognize that I need help in order to be super human. No this doesn’t mean I can leap tall buildings in a single bound, it simply means I can accomplish anything I want to in this life so long as what I want to accomplish conforms to the basic laws of physics. But I never do anything alone. I need help. I need people, and I need a power greater than any human power. Some people call that power G-d. If that word bothers you, call it “The Universe.”

I was recently looking at the fact that I was putting in SO many hours at work that I wasn’t doing anything fun. I wasn’t doing anything to relax. I also realized something else. By putting in so many hours what does that say about how much faith I have in The Universe to bring about the things and events that I have asked for in life? It shows a lack of faith. It sends a message that says “I don’t expect you to do this for me”. So I backed off. Even though I have had some months in the past year where it was difficult to bring in enough to pay my mortgage without going into my savings much less accumulate more savings which is what we are all supposed to be doing. I took a leap of faith and backed off of work. In fact I committed to a substantial expense joining the Jenny Craig program and at the same time I committed to my wife that I was going to stop working by 6-7pm each night. I followed through on this and amazingly enough I found myself getting in more business. But how was I to take this on when I was committing to work fewer hours? Simple, I had to leverage my time by giving the work to other Nerds. I have had them around, waiting to get work from me. I just had to let go and allow some other people into my world so I could give them the work. This now sends a message to The Universe that I I going to use what you give me to help others and I am going to trust that you will keep giving me what I need in order that I can keep helping others. The work has been flowing in at what really seems to be just the right pace and during this time I got my first new client interested in my consultation for the purposes of helping her with her own social media campaign. Something that in the back of my mind I have really been wanting to do. I enjoy it much more than the accounting at this point. Even in the accounting arena I would much rather be writing financial blogs and recording QuickBooks videos than booking journal entries. I still also really enjoy training. I love the satisfaction I get when I sit with someone and teach them how to do something and I get to see the satisfaction in their eyes as they light up with enthusiasm because they JUST GOT IT!  This is what I love. So by backing off and trusting in G-d (or The Universe) I got more by doing less. Of course that only works when you’re already doing a LOT or as in my case, doing too much. If you are sitting on your ass and doing nothing to create the life you want for yourself I assure you that The Universe will respond to that with exactly what you are asking for. Nothing.

We all have to do our part and the whole key here is finding that balance between my part and G-d’s

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