Native Proverbs and AA

Native Proverbs and AA

Old age is not as honorable as death; but most people want it.

Crow Proverb

Yes, it will soon be my birthday and I am feeling my age. It's not just the weather, its the birthday blues. Like the song says, “You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today, and then one day you find ten years have got behind you.” A big part of the birthday blues is looking back and seeing all that you were going to accomplish left still undone. We might start even to compare ourselves to our friends.... look what that guy accomplished. Damn I never did a thing.... but if we do that we are certain to sink deeper into an abysmal pit at a time of year that should be joyous.

In AA we learn that, “Other people's opinions of me is none of my business.” Why do we say that... because people change their opinions more than they change their underwear. It is like my daughter when she was little. She loved broccoli. She couldn't get enough of it. Then I suppose one of the other kids told her that was gross and she in her infinite wisdom decided she didn't like broccoli any more. It was baby food.

Now had the broccoli taken that opinion personally it would have been on the roof of a bank, dressed in a toga and picking people off with an AK47 while singing, “I did it my way.” If we obsess on other people's opinions we will literally get stuck in our own heads until we unravel.

Further we say in AA that, “My opinion of me is none of my business.” That is because not one of us can see ourselves objectively. If we are proud, it can turn into arrogance. If we feel poorly about ourselves it can lead to nearly suicidal thoughts.

The trick is to stay out of our heads. In AA what we say is, “Move a muscle, change a thought.” Believe me the best medicine for over-thinking any thing is to just get out there and live!

That's my side of it,

Angel