What Then?

In a recent Facebook status line I wrote “when we are disturbed we need only look to ourselves for the source of our agitation.” It is a quote I lifted from the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous that was shared with me several years ago by a friend in that program. I love that quote for many reasons. Mainly, it is a reminder that I need to take personal responsibility for my feelings. Sure people can be difficult and even that is an understatement at times. But all I can do is choose to react or ignore behavior that I find disquieting. Usually I react, and my reactions tend to leave me feeling even more unhappy and upset, and so I use this reminder, as a way of telling myself “think before you react.”

Anyway, I posted this thing in my status line and my friend from Az. Commented “What then?” Which totally left me stumped. I mean sure I know that I am the one that is making me crazy, depressed or down right irritable, but what then? Some months ago I blogged about watching a friend decompress after having become upset with his child. I marveled at his ability to self-sooth and craved it for myself. I sad to report that I still fair no better in this department. So, what then?

You may notice that my blog has been quiet for some many months and that I only recently started posting again. Honestly my readership was never that extensive and I wonder whom, if anyone I am writing this for? Posterity? The Void? Interestingly when I reactivated the blog I noticed that several sites listed on my blog-list were also dormant or otherwise neglected. It seems starting about a year ago people began to drop off blogging one by one. They all had their reasons and all those reasons are good, but it made me realize the absence the dialogue that I had created for myself. I would read other people’s blogs, comment on them, post responses of my own and of course write my thoughts and experiences and so forth. It was great fun, and I miss it. I don’t suppose I will have anything like that again, but in an effort to rekindle what was once so important to me, I have decided to start writing again.

I only mention this because I asked myself the same question that my friend asked me. What then? You see I, like everyone else, experienced set backs this year. Unforeseen events which, in some cases were caused but my own actions and in some cases caused by others, but which, in the end caused me to recoil and hide away. I have been in a kind of cocoon waiting for something, anything to tell me that the craziness, the pain, and the suffering were over. I tried starting a new blog, hoping a fresh start would some how help me. But it was a half-hearted attempt and really it left me very frustrated. People told me that my blog was too depressing or that my blog was too brainy and I let these comments affect me as well. In the end I stopped blogging not so much because blogging wasn’t working for me as I did because I reacted. I didn’t think. I reacted.

The saying “when we are disturbed…” the saying I started this thought on, comes from a discussion about the meaning of the tenth step of alcoholics anonymous, which says “continued to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong promptly admitted it.” You will note that this saying says nothing about getting it right. In fact it rather shamelessly suspects that I will get it wrong and will have to do something about it. The axiom of the tenth step, that my feelings are my own and do not come about as the result of the actions of others reminds me that not only am I going to get it wrong, but the subsequent step I take will probably be wrong as well. Which is exactly what I described above. I get upset (probably wrong), I react badly (wrong), I make things worse. For me, “what then?” is not a reminder to do things right. What’s done is done. For me, “what then?” is a chance to unspool the actions that I have taken, and then to possibly learn from them.

I miss blogging. Blogging, for me, was always a chance to sit down and reflect a little bit on this or that. I won’t deny that I enjoyed the idea of having “readers” but that it was never really about readers. I was more of a diary, a chance at reflections, and that is really all I need it to be. I don’t have to have the world’s happiest blog, nor do I need to smart it up or dumb it down. For me “what then” is to be content with what I have, and a chance to start over and try again and possibly, just possibly, do things a little better the next time.

So blog. It is me and you. Let’s see if we can’t try again, and maybe have a little fun in the process.