August 18
Outside Our Circle
Opportunities to be helpful are easy to recognize in A.A. Elsewhere, our attention becomes selective. The person answering the phone, cleaning the building, or serving our food may scarcely register as someone having a day of their own. We are polite enough, perhaps, until something goes wrong. Then the patience we speak about in meetings becomes surprisingly difficult to locate.
Practicing principles in all our affairs includes encounters that carry no recovery language and offer no special sense of purpose. Another person's dignity does not depend on whether helping them feels like service. We can be clear about a mistake without treating the person who made it as an obstacle. We can also notice competence and care when things go well. These brief exchanges reveal whether respect has become part of how we live or remains something we reserve for people we already identify with.
Who receives less patience from me because I see their role before I see the person?
They have a life beyond this transaction.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Twelve.