Seems
that we should not even have that word in the dictionary, because it
represents a consciousness or condition that is not desirable, to most
people. Every one needs to feel useful, as well as needed, and
wanted. To feel good about ourselves, we need to feel like we are
accomplishing something, worth while. Unless we are engaged in some
activity, we do feel useless.
Do we
need to state that uselessness is high tech useless?
Seems though that most of us have experienced most things to the extreme,
so it just falls in line with the rest of the deal. So, let us look to
the literature, of the original anonymous text, to see where we are
headed, with this topic. On page eighty four, we find the following
quote, in the chapter "Into Action:"
That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear.
So that we
can really appreciate what that statement is about, we need to quote from
the chapter "There is a Solution," the following, found on page
eighteen:
But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's. It brings
misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and
parents - anyone can increase the list.
Let us
take a quick look as an overview, from afar. Any young person that
has not had a long career, and that has never had responsibility, nor
children, can not necessarily appreciate the full experience of what this
web page is about. Older people, that have achieved a degree of
success, that have had careers, and families, surely know what it is like
to be useful. It does not matter if we are professional or service
orientated people. When people are dependent on our efforts, all employers
pay us, and therefore, we get some sense of being useful, some more than
others.
When
things bottom out, and we are in the throws of the annihilation of all
things worth while in life, and are griped with the feeling of
uselessness, that is a change that is not comfortable at all. But as
recovery has it's way with us, much to our chagrin at times, and we start
learning how to be useful, in the recovery community, and as the promises
are being fulfilled, as a result of "working for them," so that
they will materialize, all things change, in our new way of thinking.
It is not
like that I can go out and focus on being useful today, to someone, or
anyone that I want it to be. This is strictly a chance endeavor, and
encounter, having worked the steps, and then practiced the
principles. Most people find that they are ill equipped to work with
family members, or loved ones, in most cases, because we are too close to
the situation. A perfect stranger is not emotionally involved, at
all, and therefore, no excess baggage gets brought into the scene of
service work. All we are trying to do is be helpful, by carrying the
message, up to our experience, at the time we are picked to share with any
individual. The promises being fulfilled is a bi-product of
disciplined effort, pertaining to what is written, not what we think ought
to be written.
And
certainly, we by that time perfectly understand that if we focus on the
solution, the problems just seem to go away. But the more we focus
on any particular problem, the bigger it gets.
The briefest
thumbnail of what we are getting at is that everything in the old life is
generally selfish or self-centered, of which there is never enough.
As the feeling of uselessness is disappearing, we are generally replacing
old efforts with selfless acts of service, which starts the process of
learning about a fulfilling life, that is very satisfying, over the long
haul.
