December 9
Working for What
Work can restore something we thought we had lost: reliability, skill, the respect of people who count on us. We may enjoy that restoration so much that we keep extending the day. There is always another task, another chance to prove ourselves. The people who wanted us sober now find us absent for a more respectable reason, and their disappointment feels ungrateful.
There are seasons when long hours are necessary, and many people have little choice about them. Where a choice does exist, recovery invites us to look at what work is doing for us emotionally as well as financially. Are we providing for a life we rarely enter? Have achievement and usefulness become indistinguishable? Step Twelve allows ambition to find a more reasonable place. We can value our work deeply while remembering the relationships, rest, and spiritual care that keep a working life human.
What part of my life keeps waiting until I have proved enough at work?
The end of the workday belongs to life too.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Twelve, pp. 121–124.