Endigar 630 ~ True Ambition
From the Daily Reflections of December 7;
True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 124-125)
During my drinking years, my one and only concern was to have my fellow man think highly of me. My ambition in everything I did was to have the power to be at the top. My inner self kept telling me something else but I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t even allow myself to realize that I wore a mask continually. Finally, when the mask came off and I cried out to the only God I could conceive, the Fellowship of A.A., my group and the Twelve Steps were there. I learned how to change resentments into acceptance, fear into hope and anger into love. I have learned also, through loving without undue expectations, through sharing my concerns and caring for my fellow man, that each day can be joyous and fruitful. I begin and end my day with thanks to God, who has so generously shed His grace on me.
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I know these thoughts of humility and usefulness are spiritually empowering and that is the paradox of the Realm of the Spirit that is difficult for me to hold on to. There was a movie that came out just before the turn of the century called “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Royal twins who were mirror images of one another, inverse duplicates, that caused one brother to be tucked away in a dungeon locked in an iron mask to hide his face so the other brother could seize his ambitions to rule without challenge. This resonated with me. In order for the life lust of the more dominate elemental of my personality to have its way within me, I had to tuck another part of myself away and obscure his identity. The mask was my deep pain and the dungeon was his betrayal for being so giving and open.
Unlike the movie, I believe in a third option and that the tendency to think in terms of evil and good is the primary sickness of humanity. My power in life is intrinsically limited, but can become progressively expansive by connecting with others and Gomu (God of my understanding). Humility is the connective tissue in the building of spiritual muscle. Usefulness to the whole is the circulation of power exchange. Polar thinking where the Universe is divided between evil and good is naturally divisive and weakens my personal expression. I chose the third door beyond polarized thinking.
Daily Reprieve 
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