stillfugue

This is additional material for the Who I Want to Be effort.

I wrote a Mission Statement a few years ago, not long after I got sober.  I’d written many before that and had various successes living up to them. After getting sober, it was so wonderful to finally have a Mission Statement where I could honestly pursue all of the values I genuinely believed in.  I could begin to succeed at fulfilling my values with my foe, alcohol, out of the way.  Alcohol doesn’t destroy your values but it significantly lowers the priority level of implementing those values.  The following statements that are bolded and italicized are from that Mission Statement, and following each one is a judgment on performance.  As I progress in my work with B2, I am sure we will get a totally new Mission and hopefully do a little to live up to it.

I will be passionate for a sober life filled with music, serenity, and integrity without the chaos driving the bus. I need to try to go easy on myself – I’m staying sober and helping others in that regard. That’s good.  I also listen to music as much as I can because it fuels my life and my desire to do good things.  I don’t think I have any serenity, but it is relative.  Many of the things that would formerly aggravate me no longer faze me and that is due to an increasing level of serenity.  I continue to spend big parts of my day in a disturbed state, and that is not good.  I want to create music, not just passively listen to music.  I have not created a good environment for creating music nor have a sought out the opportunities, but I only have myself to blame for those shortcomings.  Lack of time does harm to some of these efforts.  This blog is part of my desire to be creating, and now that I have started this, I should have more of the necessary courage for creating music.  The integrity is not the best right now.  I try to be true to myself and I try not to deceive others, but I have not had a great year.  I have blamed others for my own defects, and I have not been an open book to all of my loved ones.  Chaos is driving my bus, but I try whenever I can to be a spectator.

I will care for my wife and do things to support her happiness and serenity. There has been good and bad, great and awful.  I’m working on it.  This is a primary activity that I should keep as primary or I should not be married.

I will live with my father as a role model – His love, his passion for what is right, his curiosity and open mind. Pretty darn good in the last year.  Not bad.  Also, I have become much closer to my father and that has been rewarding.  It is hard for me to share about my depression with him because it causes him worry and he wants to fix me.  I keep telling him what my doctor tells me, though I remain unconvinced, that this will not last forever and I will get better.  He tells me that he doesn’t want to die knowing that I am not happy, and that is way too much fucking pressure.  I told him that, too.

I will stick with people when they are down because people stick with me when I am down. Not bad.  I stick with a lot people who are down.  Some people don’t like how I do that or what I say, and that is hard to swallow.  I don’t try to give advice.  I try to share my experience, hope, and support, and if they relate, that is good.  Sometimes people just don’t like me and I need to not take that personally, right?  It’s none of my business what they think of me as long as I love them.

I will find love by being in the present moment always – I will break the chain between the past and the future. Not good at all, and I am not sure there has been any spiritual progress.  I understand it rationally, but I sure do not live it.  I spend a lot of my days with fears from unknown sources and that tells me that I am not in the present.  When I am in the present moment, I am always undisturbed.

I will live life without letting time dominate my actions and my thoughts.  Music will care for me. I think I am finally getting better at this.  Emotional maturity comes slowly.  I rarely watch TV anymore because I don’t have to see everything that is happening in the world, especially when I can have no impact on any of it.  I like spending time with people when I can and if it goes long, I don’t stop it.  People are important.  I don’t show up late, but I don’t worry about what I should be working on when I am talking with another person on the phone or otherwise.  Music does care for me, especially when I think the pain will never go away and the painful day will never end.

I will accept things as they are and work with all of the temporary forms in life. Not good.  There are many people whom I have had difficulty with accepting, and that is entirely my fault.  I know better but I continue to set expectations.  I know better.  Also, many of the temporary forms in life continue to aggravate rather than flow.  I forget but almost of all my life is working with temporary forms, not considering people who are temporary but not necessarily forms, and I need to continue to work on letting it happen.  I know that meditation helps me with these things, and I continue to resist doing what is good for me and resist spending enough time in meditation.

I will always be willing to face my defects with honesty, but I will not dwell on things that are as they are. Doing badly.  I am willingly facing a ton of defects, but the activity is out of proportion so that I am dwelling on things that do not need the attention and probably not working on things that do.  B2 is my hope in this area.  She is my bright hope for improvement here.