There is someone who is bothering me. She’s driving me crazy. I’ve run out of patience. Three sentences above: 2 “me’s” and 1 “I”. That means the problem and solution probably are on me.
I know that I cannot change her, but I also know that I can change my attitude about her. The Big Book tells me:
We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."
Now this is a hard prescription to follow. I know it’s going to require a lot of compassion. I’m really interested in Eastern spirituality, so I “googled” compassion and found Kwan Yin.
Long ago, according to legend, Kwan Yin earned the right to enter Nirvana after her death. But when she stood before the gates of paradise, she heard the anguished voices of those left on earth and, turning away from bliss, vowed to remain in the world, gently leading others until all living things reached enlightenment. Kwan Yin, a bodhisattva, became the Goddess Of Infinite Compassion or 'she who hears the cries of the world.'
I want to be like Kwan Yin. I want to have compassion for this self centered, whiney, little twit (who won’t take direction). But today I’m feeling very human.
I talked with my sponsor last night. He just smiled and suggested that maybe there is a reason she is in my life; perhaps there is a lesson I am supposed to learn. I asked him what the lesson could possibly be, and he just smiled again. God, I hate that.
