[1] “I’m glad you are going to try that new job. But make sure that you are only going to ‘try’. If you approach the project in the attitude that ‘I must succeed, I must not fail,’ then you guarantee a drinking relapse. But if you look at the venture as a constructive experiment only, then all should go well.”*****
[2] I have mixed feelings about this business of “not trying too hard” because, had I not given it my all, I doubt whether I’d be sober today.
Going for a job might be entirely another story but, as far as sobriety goes, I know that failure is not an option. This attitude, of course, does not mean that I am driven to achieve the highest rank in heaven as far as spirituality is concerned. I see this drive among my fellows in meditation practice as one of the most annoying because I know I have been driven by it; especially very early on in the practice. I had to have the greatest and most profound revelations or aspire to be the teacher in the group… never to be an equal in the Sangha. Then the pain from old back injuries eventually piled up with age and sitting in the lotus position made meditation an agonizing experience, Pain forced me to take my place in a chair or assume a prone position on the floor. At first I found it to be a humiliating acceptance until I could no longer fake it with the group. I found that the simple act of taking a chair created in my heart the humility it takes to benefit from meditation.
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