This Sober Life

Monday is my birthday: 56 years old. Today I jogged a half marathon. I hadn't planned that. I just went to the park with some drink and my garmin and started jogging. It was going well and the rain held off so I kept going. This took about 3 hours.

Later, I hope to do a 56 durability workout. That is laps in my house which involves going up and down stairs plus: on the first floor I'll do mountain climbers, KB swings, TRX bicep curls and TRX front rows; and on the second floor I'll do tricep dips, shoulder press, calf raise, and pushups. I'll do 56 crunches too.

But why do I say sober life? Sobriety and the 12 Steps are a way of life. I have been sober most of my adult life. This week, I got to do Step 10 (Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it). I privately lost my temper over a stubborn colleague. When I saw my boss, I said I needed to get that colleague away from me and that I would refuse to work with him. Of course, my boss wasn't too concerned because everyone gets mad at this colleague. My bosses problem is he was counting on me to do some work in a certain area. But, he let it go.

But as a sober person, my own anger (translated thoughts yelling at me about how bad this colleague was and fear of my boss) continued on in my head for the evening. It fired up again in the morning as I sat to do my spiritual work. I didn't know what I would do when I got to work. I prayed for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out (Step 11). I prayed for an intuitive thought or decision. I prayed for my colleague's health prosperity and happiness. Then I became quiet.

Then a thought came: I sincerely wanted to be grateful for the work given me to do. Would I like to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution? I would like to be of service. I would like to act to good purpose. This meant approaching my boss, admitting my fault and asking how I could best serve him. (My boss is and always has been very easy going). I had genuine concern that my boss had access to my skills because he relies on me to solve problems not create them.

I did get a chance to talk to him that day. He had not noticed I was upset the day before. He was happy to give me back the job I said I wouldn't do. He also said he would tell other colleague to not interfere with my activities. He said this because he knows other colleague would hinder my progress and I didn't need that.

The spiritual part of this was genuine desire for a feeling of gratitude, the intention to be of service, and the gift of an intuitive thought. This situation a gift of prayer.

This is how I do my life. As I look at my career, I know it is not really going to advance any more. I am a technical expert and at the highest point without being in management. I have no desire to manage people. But I still have a decade of going to work. How will I survive that? Gratitude. The idea that I am serving and and grateful for the opportunity.

As time goes on, I am so grateful for my sober life. It has made my life bearable. But the undercurrent of spirit is what I live on.

Tomorrow might be rainy and cold. I don't know that many miles will be done.