Egomania

Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls.  Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend on them far too much.  If we lean to heavily on people they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possible meet our incessant demands.  In this way our insecurity grows and festers.  When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily.  Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate.  As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant.  We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.  Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it.  This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us. Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension.  Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p53

This is an accurate description of me.  These are character defects I am still humbly asking God to remove.  They still come back around and I keep surrendering, hoping one day to receive the gift of humility.  I am one of those people that can lay face down in the gutter and still look down at everyone else.  I am an egomaniac with an inferiority complex and I have no problem at all tearing you down to make myself feel better.  And so the disease continues.  I am so grateful for each daily reprieve I get.  I am thankful that more often now I choose to be kind rather than right.  I see progress.  That is what counts for me.

Thank you Higher Power.  Thank you for this day.  Thank you for this breathe.  Thank you for showing me that I am really no better than anyone else and noone is really better than me.  We are all different, but at the core, we are all the same.  Thank you for the opportunity to begin to feel this Oneness with other people in recovery.