December 3
When Things Improve
A little financial breathing room can bring enormous relief. Bills get paid without the same dread, something broken gets replaced, and an evening out becomes possible. Then we may notice a quieter change: we begin listening differently to people who are still struggling. Their difficulties start to look like failures of effort. Our improved circumstances have begun supplying opinions about their lives.
Gratitude remembers more than the work we did. It remembers help, opportunities, timing, and the sobriety that made effort possible. This does not diminish our responsibility or the satisfaction of doing a job well. It keeps success from becoming a measure of everybody else's character. Step Twelve considers both material security and our appetite for importance because they can become so closely tangled. We have something to enjoy, and perhaps something to share, without needing our good fortune to prove that we are better people.
How has greater security changed the way I regard someone who has less?
A paid bill is a relief, not a verdict on anyone.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Twelve, pp. 120–124.