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No Big Deals

When I was new I heard the old timers say there are no big deals in life. I wondered how he could say that because back anything that even slightly threatened my physical or emotional comfort was a big deal for me. I was unemployed and running out of money. Wasn't that a big deal? What about contracting a terminal illness? What about death? What about wars? Aren't these big deals?

In the past seventeen years I have lived through enough of these so-call "big deals" to realize that the old timers are right. There aren't any big deals. I've lived through job loss, serious physical injury, and my wife's multiple surgeries. Each time I make it to the other side of one of these scary periods without a drink, I'm able to see that all my worry and anxiety was a waste of my peace of mind. Today I live in certainty that I am exactly where I are supposed to be doing exactly what I am supposed to do. And everyone else is too. Perhaps not we are not where we want to be, but where we are supposed to be according to some kind of divine plan that I have given up trying to figure out. Perhaps this realization is a measure of my growing faith--a faith I acquired in Alcoholics Anonymous simply by continuing to do today what was suggested to me in my first few weeks.

When I am spiritually fit, I realize that life isn't either important or unimportant. Life isn't what it used to be, what it should be, or what it could be if I could just manage it better. Life just is. As long as I am making judgments about what is, I am arguing with reality. And every time I argue with reality I lose, but only every time. When I can simply accept life on life's terms and just do the next indicated thing, my days seem to go pretty damn good.