DEC 30, 12 .. PERFECTIONISM .. AND A 'MEETING' ..

Let’s start with the word assume .. I ASSUME that some of you ( or maybe many of you? ) know that I am active in a twelve-step program of recovery.  Those of you who do not know what I am talking about, may want to just stop reading here because what I plan to write will make NO SENSE to you.  You will also notice that my web site .. titled my Doxology .. is in praise of my creator .. The God of Abraham, to whom I rhetorically ask, “How do things like this happen Oh God of Abraham?”  OK .. last Friday, December the 21^st, I did a post about THE THREE P’s -- Perfectionism .. Procrastination .. Paralysis.  Now let me tie-this-all-together for you who are interested in reading forward.

Sunday Morning .. December 30^th, 2012 .. I am EXPLODING WITH ENERGY!  Last night I slept a full eight (8) hours, unusual for me since I seldom sleep this long at night.  I was up before 7AM and .. let me tell you all .. I was ‘wired up’ and exploding with energy.  As I was doing my morning process, I kept thinking quietly to myself .. “I think that I will go to my favorite 8:30AM Sunday Morning men’s meeting.”  And so I did.

The meeting is based upon the book .. ‘As Bills Sees It’.  We do not randomly 'pick-a-page' to read in the book .. each week we progress through the book one-page-at-a-time in sequential order.  Not having been to the meeting for some time .. I did not have a clue as to which page we would be reading this morning.   At this point in my recovery process, I usually say little at meetings UNLESS I feel that maybe I can contribute something positive to the meeting.  I am quite comfortable and happy to just sit quietly and relax and let other newer members share.  Also at this particular meeting, many members want to share and it is usually a matter of having to ‘break in’ immediately after a member finishes his share since someone else will be ‘poised’ to begin their share.. and I do not like having to ‘compete’ to ‘get time to share’.  Finally .. seldom to NEVER do I actually lead the meeting. 

8:30AM the meeting began on-time.  One member ‘chairs’ the meeting.  After all of the meeting preliminaries were completed .. The Serenity Prayer .. The Preamble .. How It Works .. announcements .. the usual meeting format .. this morning the ‘chairman’ then stated thusly:  “Today we are on page 167 of ‘As Bill Sees It’.  Who would like to read page 167 and share on the reading?”  Keep-in-mind what I just posted here last Friday .. two days ago!  The Three P’s .. As I casually glanced at today's reading on page 167 .. I was STUNNED!

Page 167 of ‘As Bill Sees It’ is titled: 

Progress Rather than Perfection.

“On studying the Twelve Steps, many of us exclaimed, “What an order, I can’t go though with it.”  Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these spiritual principles.  We are not saints.

The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles that we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

We … … are not so much brothers in virtue as we are bothers in our defects, and in our common strivings to overcome them.”

End partial Quote (I omitted two words)

As I posted last Friday .. daily I live with this crippling affliction of paralyzing  perfectionism!  It Must Be God’s Will that I have these web site(s) and that I actually am able to post writings.  Patti knows how I ‘agonize’ over these posts and have to overcome my committees that are constantly saying .. “No one reads your posts!  No one cares about what you post!” blah-blah-blah!  Thank you Oh God Of Abraham for that one-quiet-little-one-person-committee inside-of-my-head that almost shyly says .. it always amazes me how I can actually hear that one-quiet-shy-little-voice above the ‘din’ of the others! .. “It will be all right.  Go ahead.”

Well this morning I did NOT have to ‘grab-the-lead’ .. none of the others seemed ‘moved to read and to share’ about the above  reading .. so off I went .. revved up and energized!

I can’t recall the last time that an hour-and-a-quarter meeting went by so quickly for me!  Dare I say 'it'?  For me at least .. a perfect meeting!

All I can end with is:

OH GOD OF ABRAHAM MY CREATOR .. THANK YOU FOR THE MEETING THIS MORNING!  FOR ME IT WAS A WHEW!

Smiles .. Cap ..

Now I will be gratefully quiet for weeks to come!   

DEC 21, 12 .. PERFECTIONISM LEADS TO PROCRASTINATION WHICH LEADS TO PARALYSIS !

 Oh Yes .. those life crippling  ..  THREE  P’s !

PERFECTIONISM .. trying to be PERFECT .. LEADS TO ..

PROCRASTINATION .. I can’t do this perfect so I will ’put-off-even-starting-to-do-this’ ..

PROCRASTINATION .. leads straight to .. ‘Zilla ‘Do NOT Pass Go’ ..

PARALYSIS .. a 100% total lock-down .. stop-before-you-even-begin negative state-of-mind !

And I am one of them .. sad to say .. I'm a perfectionist ..

But I have learned how-to-deal-with this crippling affliction of perfectionism .. because I have found and I use several very important  tools to deal with it!  Perhaps my greatest single tool is the below wisdom.  I hope you study it!

I AM ONLY ONE ..  BUT STILL  .. I AM ONE!

I CANNOT DO EVERYTHING ..  BUT STILL  ..

I CAN DO SOMETHING!

AND BECAUSE I CANNOT DO EVERYTHING ..

I WILL NOT REFUSE TO DO THE SOMETHING I CAN DO!   

          MAY GOD BLESS YOU MY CENTURIES DEAD ‘MENTOR’ ..

             MISTER EDWARD EVERETT HALE ..

I’m sitting in my kitchen here in Royal Oak, Michigan, ‘whapped out’ from the trip .. so exhausted that it took two hours to ‘get some breakfast together’ .. and ..

My Web Mistress Gullible telephones me ‘in-my-head’ .. “Cap DON’T EVEN START THIS WRITING YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT .. IT WILL BE TERRIBLE!”

“But Gullible!” .. “Don’t BUT ME Captain .. you heard me!” .. “Sit on it! /s/ Gullible!"

Gee I hang up the phone and ‘Tom Tiger 48067’ telephones me ‘in my head’ .. “Cap .. how on earth can you pride yourself on driving six hours without getting out of your driver’s seat!  CAP GIVE ME A BREAK .. I am a professional trucker .. I drove for many years .. after six hours behind the wheel I would yawn and say six hours more to go before I take a break and in the first six hours I would have driven AT LEAST 420 miles .. not your piddling 319 miles! .. and further Cap .. I would have cut at least one full hour off your time!  A professional trucker would have exited Michigan Highway 14 off I-94 and cut through Ann Arbor to I-275 and run North to I-696 and been in your home by a minimum of an hour earlier than you were and I would’ve avoided the mess you ran into passing through Ann Arbor!  Heck .. I may’ve saved an hour-and-a-half Cap!" 

Man Tom Tiger 48067 you are now Tom TRUCKER 48067!

A quick aside .. Patti and I are rolling from Shreveport, Louisiana, heading West for Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas, in the middle-of-the-night and we call ‘Tom Tiger 48067’ and say .. “Tom we are on I-20 outta Shreveport rollin’ for Dallas / Fort Worth.”  .. Tom says .. “Cap and Patti .. say hello to Exit 182 called Engel Road!”

No matter where we called Tom from .. he would KNOW THAT specific  road!  AMAZING TOM .. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY AMAZING MY MAN!!  YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER!

OK .. I hang up the telephone 'in-my-head' again and my Web Master Andre telephones me ‘in-my-head’ and says “Cap .. now you see why EVEN I YOUR WEB MASTER don’t read your posts!”

“What’s that you ask ‘Zilla?” .. “The point ‘Zilla?” .. 

 HERE’S THE POINT I AM MAKING! ..

ALL OF US HAVE THESE DRATTED-PERSISTANT-NAGGING-NEGATIVE-COMMITTEES INSIDE OF OUR HEADS .. AND IF I CAN SHUT-MY-COMMITTEES-UP AND MOVE FORWARD .. IT IS A SPIRITUAL TRUTH OF THE UNIVERSE THAT YOU CAN TOO!

Another phone call ‘in-my-head’ .. “What’s that Patti?  Work on my spelling and my grammer (grammar) some more!” .. “I do miss you here with me proof-reading these ramblings my dear one!”

“What’s that Julia Cameron?” .. “Oh YES .. it is the writing itself that calls ideas forth .. so just-begin-to-write and the ideas will flow!”  Again THANKS BRAD 49855 for the gift of Julia Cameron and “The Right to Write” ..

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This is what I started out to write .. a brief trip synopsis .. are you with me here ROBERT  94596?

We left Sunday, November the 18^th .. and both of us .. Patti to Anchorage and myself to Royal Oak .. returned to our ‘homes’ on Thursday, December the 20^th.  So our total trip was thirty three (33) days.  We drove through MI, OH, KY, TN, AL, MS, LA, TX, LA, MS, AL, TN, KY, IN, IL (Patti left in Chicago, IL) and I drove back myself from IL into MI.  Some 11 states. 

We drove 4,597.7 miles total.  139.3 miles driving per day on average. 

Gasoline cost from a high of $3.40 per gallon in Chicago all the way down to $2.95 per gallon in Alabama.  We saw it priced (where everyone else was buying their gasoline!) as low as $2.85 per gallon.  On the trip we spent $778.14 for gasoline (I have not yet filled up the tank since driving here from Chicago yesterday ROBERT 94596).  We purchased a total of 254.635 gallons of gasoline.   So our average cost per gallon was just under $3.06 ($3.056 to be exact).

The miles driven in the above gasoline totals (from100% full in Toledo, OH back to 100% full in Chicago) were a total of 4,194 miles so we averaged 16.478 miles per gallon of gasoline over this distance.  Our best was 18.246 miles per gallon in one stretch (298.2 miles) on the highway down to 17.638 (668 miles) and 17.412 (230.4 miles). NOT BAD FOR A BIG 1998 GMC SUBURBAN!  Clement in France ‘Googled’ this so he could see what our Suburban ‘Black Beauty’ looks like!

Robert 94596 where would I be if I hadn’t met you in October of 1965?  Here’s where I’d be .. alone in my own mind .. ah but I have you and your mind along with me as a fellow companion with me and with my mind!

 “What’s that Gullible” .. “Well I guess a few people are following along here!”           

“Yes ‘Zilla?” .. “Why so much detail ‘Zilla?” ..

SIMPLY BECAUSE  ‘Zilla .. I  can ‘see-in-my-mind’s-eye’ some of my gentle and humble friends over in India enthusiastically following along with us on their maps of the USA!  A trip few if any of them will ever have the opportunity to make.  FEW OF THEM have been able to SEE AS MUCH OF THEIR OWN INDIA as I have been blessed to see.  Lord how I miss being in India!  Mohnish and Sharma and Ivan and Lawrence and Jeevan and Vikas and Raj and Shivam (in 110 055) and many many more of you .. I’m leaving out you in Calcutta and in Goa and in the South .. Pondy and Kodikanal .. do not bet against me surprising-you-all with an in-person visit much sooner than any of us expects .. starting with me!  

Trust  ..  me  ..  on  ..  this!       I .. do .. know .. how .. to .. do .. world .. travel!   Health and Buckaroos and Guts .. I have all three on my side!

And in One-Short-New-York-Minute I can get going!  To quote Eli Wallach in ‘The Good The Bad and The Ugly’  .. “IF you are going to shoot!  SHOOT!  Don’t Talk!”  What a scene and what a line!

BUT HEALTHWISE .. This dratted Benign Positional Vertigo has given-to-me a huge wake-up-call!  All of our time-here is limited!  So (with discernment Father Abello!) DO IT NOW IF you are ever going to do it!  How could I NOT RETURN TO CALCUTTA!?  This is ‘tearing-me-up’ I so long to return to India .. and SOON!

“Yes Gullible?” .. “Call this a wrap you say Gullible?” .. “OK” ..

Since I began writing back in December of 1990 .. I will be forever grateful to those of you who have chosen to follow-along-with-me!  And to those of you who have joined me along-the-way-since!!

With MUCH LOVE on this Holiday Season .. I sign off for now .. Cap ..

So Patti my dear one .. call me when you've proofed this .. in the meantime the above is out-for-the-world-to-see-warts-and-all!