Purposeful Purpose

Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance, and for family satisfactions --- all these have to be redirected. We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first --- then and only then do we have a real chance.

TWELVE STEPS

 AND

TWELVE TRADITIONS

STEP TWELVE (p. 114)

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It was impossible to see the true purpose of my life. Pat answers came and went. I strove at any rate… strove hard and long… sometimes successful and sometimes a complete failure at one or the other. But I tried to make one of these work. I tried with all my heart to become a good husband and father but failed. I tried at the same time to establish a career in the arts with a little success but failed in the end. I was like a farmer who was there for the plowing and sowing of the fields but never stayed long enough in one spot for the harvest. With no home, I wandered restlessly until I lit in one town and surrendered to the horror that my life was going nowhere.

            Thankfully, when the spiritual path I’m on revealed itself to me, I understood it at last. Furthermore, while many others were spiritually/genetically geared for all the goodies of life that I had hungered for and were able to find meaning and purpose in them, I was not. It was as though God spoke to me saying, “George, you are here for a purpose, now get out of the way and mind your own business!”

            From there I have been restored from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I became open to all of the possibilities life offers once I simply put my emotional well-being first. It is amazing how much has been restored to me since then. I was a big, “Oh, I get it!” moment.

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