Why I Pray In The Shower

I was looking through my year book the other day to help me remember what some of my old class mates who are now my facebook friends, looked like in high school, and I got a little sad.  It wasn’t because of my old memories of not having many friends back then, but because it made me realize how fast the years went by since high school. It took a long time for me to learn how to be happy in life and now it seems that time is moving faster each day. I do realize of course that perhaps time went by just as quickly when I was drinking and unhappy, but I think the real sadness I felt came from realizing I only have so many years left here on this Earth. The good news is that one of the ways I have learned to be happy in life is to turn my sadness around and try to make each day the best I can. I have also learned not to let the little things, or for that matter the big things bother me as much.  Time may seem to be passing by much more quickly today now that I’m happy and older, but it’s a good feeling to know that my time isn’t being wasted like it was back in my drinking days. Instead, it’s being used to help others realize just how precious life is, and that we really can create our own happiness while we’re here.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: alcoholism, drinking, Happiness, high school, memories

Why I Pray in the Shower facebook Page

Please like my book page and write something on my wall.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: facebook fan page

Some people believe we’re put on a path at birth that leads to our destiny, and while I believe we are here for a reason, I also believe I’ve had a lot to do with creating my own path in life, especially in my sobriety. There have been several books written about having the power to create our lives the way we want them to be. Most of them basically claim that we can create our own happiness by getting everything we want in life like more money, a bigger home, and other material things. One even professed that nothing is impossible, and whatever we can dream of can be ours once we know the secret. The book that stands out the most to me, however, doesn’t do this. It was published in 1932 which is long before any of these other books were even around. It’s called Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox, and it doesn’t talk about creating happiness through materialistic gains. Instead, it explains what the key to success in life is, and how it can be obtained. My happiness in life came about through a continual striving for personal and spiritual growth, but I will say I was fortunate to find this book at a time when I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in myself, or a god. Fortunately, today whenever I let doubts creep in about my future and my ability to create it the way I would like it to be, I know everything will be all right.  This is because success in life for me isn’t creating wealth and material things to make me happy, but creating the type of happiness that these things can’t bring which is true happiness. My definition of true happiness is loving ourselves enough to be happy with who we are. I wrote in my book how I eventually became happy with who I was, and I also wrote about something else that helped me to be happy with myself. “On the days when my belief in a creator and myself are strong, I feel an inner joy that’s different from any other happiness I experience.”  This too is part of having true happiness, and no amount of material wealth can replace it.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: creating our path, emmet fox, personal and spiritual growth, true happiness

One definition of ego is “the self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves.”  It seems a lot of people try to separate themselves from others today in an effort to be different.  Although I believe we are all one spiritually, I’m all right with being different if in fact we really are.  Another definition of ego is “an exaggerated sense of self-importance, or conceit.”  Although there certainly seems to be a lot of people whose ego would fit this definition, it is really just a “false sense of ego” that in the long run doesn’t make someone feel better about them-self. Instead it fuels their insecurities and turns others away and in that sense they truly have separated themselves.  I know some people need to feel different because it gives them a feeling of importance and in many case’s one of superiority. Now it’s true that there are those who are better at their jobs than others and better at things like sports, academics, acting, singing, and dancing than others, but if someone has an “appropriate pride in themselves and self-esteem” which is yet another definition of ego, they won’t feel a “need” to be better than others. Instead they will simply only want to be better than they were before. Being better than we were before requires both spiritual and personal growth and the more we grow the happier we become with who we are. Maybe a better definition of ego would be, “the self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves, but not from other spiritual beings.”

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: addiction, alcoholism, ego, recovery, self worth, self-esteem, seperation, spiritual growth