Humility...

I absolutely love the progressive step study meeting at LLL on Thursday nights. It's usually all men, around 10 or so of us, and they range from somewhere around my age to probably in their late 60's to early 70's. The majority of them have plenty of sobriety under their belt, but occasionally someone comes in who is still newer to the program. Regardless of where they are, I love hearing different perspectives regarding the steps. There are plenty of times that I share my thoughts on a step, thinking that I have a pretty good grasp or understanding about what the original authors were trying to say. Then, once other people share THEIR thoughts on the step, most of the time I feel like I have to go back to square one. I don't mean that in a bad way whatsoever, it's just that it makes me realize that "nope, I think I may have been coming at that one all wrong, I think I need to try again."

Last night's meeting on the seventh step was definitely one of those meetings. Step seven reads "humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings." I was one of the first to read and share, and my mind seemed to focus in on the word "shortcomings." I immediately thought of all of those character defects I carry around and have been for years. This program is teaching me to work on those and pray on the willingness to not rely on those anymore. I focused on how I'm learning to treat myself better and, in return, treat others better as well. I used to think soooooo lowly of myself. I was such a piece of garbage, a disappointment and not really worth any sort of effort or attention. Now I'm able to remind myself that those thoughts are not true and that I am WORTH it. I am doing the work to right my wrongs and re-build a "new and improved" John. I also know that I need to cut myself a lot of slack, I'm not perfect. As long as I acknowledge and understand that, as well as remain open and willing to learn... I'm exactly where I need to be.

While I wasn't necessarily incorrect, per se, the other guys in the meeting (for the most part) all honed in on the word "humbly" and therefore all talked about what humility is and what it means to possess humility. Everybody seemed to confess a not-so-sure understanding of what humility is, others discussed the idea that they think they knew what humility was... but had a real difficult time reaching it. I loved all of the honesty. One of the last guys shared the quote that I posted above, by C.S. Lewis. The idea just blew my mind. Everyone seemed to confuse the idea of humility with the idea of being a human doormat. That, in order to be humble, you had to lower yourself and grovel. Not the case, whatsoever. He continued on to talk about the idea that, even if you are the type that thinks you are pure garbage (such as myself,) you are still thinking about yourself. So your self-hatred and everything is still a form of arrogance. Say wha!? I had always associated the idea of arrogance with cockiness. "I'm the best at this or I'm better than..." If your head is filled with all these thoughts of yourself, negative OR positive, it leaves little to no room for anything or anyone else.

I need to continue to do better. Stay out of myself. Help others. Don't think highly of myself. Don't think lowly of myself. Think of someone else. Hmm... goals to strive for.