Maybe we’re afraid they’ll put us in jail. Maybe we’re afraid they’ll get angry with us. Maybe they have wronged us more than we have wronged them. We might find that we aren’t ready and willing to make amends to everyone.
Now we look at how willing we are to make amends. We have made our list of persons we’ve harmed. … and because willing to make amends to them all. It’s possible that this is something I can and should change. If I have habits and traits that cause friction with others, I’ll take a new look at them. Perhaps “the way I am” is something that can be changed for the good of all, ourselves included. Other people are entitled to be treated fairly and decently. If we persist in “being the way we are” even when it doesn’t work, we have nobody to blame but ourselves when things go wrong. What we call honesty is really a form of cruelty. If we have been too brutally frank in our comments, for example, maybe we’re at fault. In our program, we should modify any behavior that offends or hurts others. But if you look at the venture as a constructive experiment only, then all should go well.”īad behavior is sometimes justified as a form of self-expression: “That’s the way I am.” Others are supposed to tolerate this or risk losing a friendship. But make sure that you are only going to ‘try.’ If you approach the project in the attitude that “I must succeed, I must not fail, I cannot fail,’ then you practically guarantee the flop which in turn will guarantee a drinking relapse. “I’m glad you are going to try that new job. This was the “all or nothing” kind of demand that later did me in. I could not accept my deep sense of inferiority, and so I strove to become captain of the baseball team, and I did learn to play the fiddle. I had to first in everything because in my perverse heart I felt myself the least of God’s creatures. I had to be the president of my class in boarding school. I had to be a musician because I could not carry a tune. In my teens, I had to be an athlete because I was not an athlete. I pray that I may strive to make myself ready for the harvest which God has planted in my heart. I pray that my way of living may be properly prepared day by day. Then you share the harvest with God - the harvest of a useful and more abundant life. As you go along, each day you are better prepared for God’s planting, until you reach the time of harvest. This preparation of the soil means many days of right living, choosing the right and avoiding the wrong. But like the seed-sowing, the ground must be prepared before the seed is dropped in.
God is always ready to pour His blessings into our hearts in generous measure. Am I ready to cooperate with those who take a sincere interest in A.A.? We have many who take a real interest in our program and we would like many more. The more doctors, the more psychiatrists, the more clergy and rabbis we can get to work with us, the better we like it. We are desirous always of cooperating with them in every way. And we are glad for any success they may have had with alcoholics. We have great respect for the methods of each. I become willing to make amends, knowing that through this process I am mended and made fit to move forward, to know and desire God’s will for me. I am careful to remember that self-satisfaction, which sometimes comes through the spoken forgiveness of those I have harmed, is not my true objective. Now, more than ever, I am vulnerable to my own self-interest and hidden agenda. How easily I can become misdirected in approaching the Eighth Step! I wish to be free, somehow transformed by my Sixth and Seventh Step work. At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order.
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