I have been resistant to control - I have been unruly. Ask my sponsor. I am defiant by nature. Stubbornly refusing to take direction. Always paying a consequence that perhaps was not really needed to be paid. This is a way of being, defined by stubborn refusal to submit.
One would think I would have learned by now. That life, after so much of it, would have round house kicked me in the ass enough that I would be less willing to play the odds, more willing to submit...but that hasn’t been my path.
I do have some wisdom today, I can stop myself mid-rant or defiant streak and change course...but only if I want to and I will fully own that a lot of the time, I just don’t want to. I get some sort of perverse pleasure out of refusing to surrender, refusing to be controlled. And yet, I am anyway, which is the piece I never saw before...
Rebelling against is just the other side of submitting to...same coin, different side. I liked the rebel side much better and have spent a lot more time on that side in my life...still do. But I think I am finally seeing that my need to control my life by not allowing others to control my life, has in fact, controlled my life.
Defiance can only come in relation to others...even if the other is God himself. Rebel forces within me have always been raising their fist to something, someone, if only my better nature. I have been stubborn in my ideas and obstreperous in my attitude. I have been unruly and clamorous for more than my share of pretty much everything. And I got a lot, all the time. My ego would like to tell you something different, but subtle tell, my ego lies... a lot.
I have been so thoroughly convinced about shit that my ego has told me that I have been devastated by a disaster that everyone but me saw coming...why? Because I was the only one whose ego had my ear. I listen and obeyed this internal, fucked up ruler because I was so busy rebelling against all of these outside forces that I didn’t really see that the enemy was within.
Well I see it today and I would love to tell you that makes me less obstreperous and more manageable but I am not sure that is really the case. I think this whole control issue is going to be a slow burn for the rest of my life. I am just going to have to connect it up with God first thing and then turn it back over all day long, forever. If I keep doing that every day, perhaps someday it will make a difference. I will stop railing against all the mundanity in the world and just accept my place among the rest of the people...no better, no worse. Just writing that made me feel a little sick. I do not want to be commonplace or average, I have always wanted to be exceptional, I guess I just got lost about what.
Today I do really want my faith to lead me. To be exceptional on my spiritual path. To seek to just be of service to others, to care about their needs, to be relieved of the bondage of self, just for this day. To have others and their lives at least mean as much to me as whatever it is I am currently doing with my own. Today I can see that in my haste to not be controlled, I have set up the very circumstances that I have been trying to avoid. Rebelling is nice, but it is tiring and sooner or later, everyone gets worn down. Tired of fighting the fight every single day to be something other than what I truly am: an average person having an average life punctuated with moments sublime and amazing.
I am not sure I will ever really be able to submit, but I can set it as a goal today and let you know how I do. Where was I able to let it go and all the many places where I was not. There has to be meaning in there somewhere...I just know it. And there I go again, stubbornly refusing...fuck, this is going to be harder than I thought.
