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My daughter got her learner’s permit recently, so she has been legally on the roads. Let me just tell you, it’s kind of terrifying. She’s doing great, and she is going to be a very good, safe, courteous driver—probably more so than her father.
But when we get in the car and she turns the key, it’s truly out of my hands what happens when we pull out on the road. I am pretty much powerless. I wish I had one of those old-school driver’s instructor cars with the extra steering wheel and brakes, but I just have a regular old Honda CRV.
It really got me thinking… what do I actually have power over? I always say out loud that life is unmanageable and I am powerless. I know there is nuance to that. I can’t just pray that somebody does my job for me and that a pay check will arrive. I need to do the work, to the best of my abilities, and let go of the rest. But I do need to get off my ass and do something. I try to think about the serenity prayer—what can I change? What can’t I? Do I have the wisdom to know the difference?
But deep down—really, really deep down—there’s a part of me that thinks I am pretty smart, pretty resourceful, pretty hard-working and pretty efficient… so yes, in lots of situations, I have a voice inside my head propelling me to do too much, to be too aggressive, to set expectations and then hold grudges afterward. I always try to remember that expectations are resentment seeds that I am burying and allowing to grow into full-grown resentments.
In regard to my daughter’s driving, I had very little control over what was going to happen. I could coach her up and communicate with her as she drove. But we were at some pretty busy intersections, and if she hit the wrong pedal by accident, this newsletter entry ain’t happening.
It again reminded me how little I actually have any power over. Take the human body, for instance. I can eat healthy and work out, but I’m not really responsible for whether my heart keeps beating, or if I have a brain aneurism.
I also don’t really have any control over other drivers. I could be driving and somebody else plows into me and that’s it.
I have an awesome job and I think I do it well. But what role do most of us truly have in whether our company made a bad decision or two, and goes out of business tomorrow?
Or think about the solar system for a minute. Did you know about 500 meteorites land on Earth every year? Guess what, no matter how carefully I orchestrate my life, no matter how much money I make, I could get clipped by a goddamn meteorite at any time!
And what about the sun? We need the sun, right? What role did I play in the sun coming up every day for the past few thousand years?
OK, I am going to stop there. I found that list of things to be pretty scary at first. But when I make lists of things I am powerless over, I usually end up feeling a sense of relief. I heard somebody say at a meeting the other day that we’re all just bozos on the bus, and I nodded along.
But do I actually think I am just a bozo on the bus? Nah, my inner voice thinks I am VERY special, which means a significant part of me thinks I should be driving the bus and you all can sit in the back.
The more I think about the things that I can’t control, the more I find relief. I can let go of the rest. It’s an odd way of getting to the point where I get to trusting the universe, but it works.
Well, it worked right up until a rabbit ran across the road in front of my daughter last night and I yelled, “Watch out for that rabbit!” But hey, I’ll keep driving with her and keep working on it.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
Maybe there is no fountain of youth, but a couple of drinks sure do make almost everybody act a lot less mature.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 1994)
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