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A few weeks ago, I had a rough Saturday. It was mostly just lingering work stuff, I felt tired, my kids were bickering. Pretty normal adulting stuff at the end of the week.
So I definitely had less than a full spiritual gas tank when I went out to run some errands. I was outside a building when I saw a girl and her mom walking when the girl started screaming and running. Then the mom grabbed her, and she started screaming and running around, too. Turns out, there was a bee flying around near them.
And I noticed myself whispering under my breath, “Oh my god, calm down, you dopes, it’s just a bee. You don’t bother them and they won’t bother you. Give me a break.”
I’d say 30 seconds later, the bee started flying around near my feet and I let out a little yelp and started jogging to get away. I managed to escape with my life intact but my pride limping a bit. So I live to tell that story, and I couldn’t help but laugh and think a little bit about judgmentalism and where that fits into my sobriety.
Goofing on stuff is in my DNA. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I do standup comedy now as a hobby, and almost all of it involves sarcasm, calling out stuff and picking on things. And I think in limited doses, making fun of the DMV or your mother-in-law or corporate culture is probably fine. Audiences seem to enjoy it.
But I get in trouble with it in real life sometimes, like on that Saturday I described, when I’m not in a great spiritual place and I start really looking down on people. It feels good. I’m not going to lie about that. If somebody does something that I deem dumb or silly or pointless, it’s amusing to pounce with my commentary from the peanut gallery. When everybody’s standing around at the playground or the watercooler looking down on stuff, it seems like a good idea. I often join in and make some jokes. Haha, everybody gets a good chuckle out of somebody else’s misfortune or stupidity.
When I sit with those comments and that attitude, though, I usually feel guilt and shame later. No judgment on anybody else who participates; I just can’t afford to do it very much before I get to a bad place. For me, it’s quick sand. The more I do it, the more I want to do it more, and the more it signals to everybody around me that I’m open for business… let’s do some s**t-talking!
I’ve had that happen, too. I’ve had situations where I’m bad-mouthing somebody to a person, other people join in and two hours later, I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t be so judgey. I need to cut that out.”
And I will… then I’m around those people later and they start unloading again, because that’s what we were just doing yesterday, and I realize that I raised my hand to keep those judgey conversations going with my previous behavior.
The only solution for me is to get out of that business and stay out. (Uh, yeah, good luck with that: I’m writing this because it’s still a part of almost every day for me.)
The truth is, judgmentalism is an infectious disease for me. Same with gossip and complaining—things that feel pretty good at first. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve joined in during a complaint session and been thinking to myself, “I don’t even know if I agree with the griping that just came out of my mouth. And yet I am doing it right now.”
The more I’ve wrestled with it, the more I realize it usually means that deep down, I feel bad about myself. My natural instincts still seem to be that if I can look down on things, that means I am standing taller somehow.
That’s not really true, and I often realize it shortly after. I don’t feel any better than I did before I started goofing on that guy’s pants or his dad bod (or both!). It’s my lack of self esteem showing up in ugly, unproductive ways. And I usually end up feeling even worse, especially if my judgmentalism begins to plant seeds for resentments. That can happen pretty quickly for me.
I’ll close with a quick story about being judgmental at meetings, because that’s really my lowest form of trying to feel superior. Think about that—going to a meeting for free help and goofing on somebody afterward?!
So a few years ago, I walked out of a meeting in New York City along side an old-timer, and I said something to him about a guy at the meeting that I had decided was a bore. “He shares the same thing every time,” I said. “And he just drones on and on. I’m so tired of listening to him.”
The old-timer listened for awhile but I could tell he just wasn’t interested in investing any spiritual capital in this conversation. So I started running out of steam with my bad-mouthing, and finally he said, simply, “Hey, we’re all here because we’re not all there.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
ALCOHOLIC/ADDICT JOKES OF THE WEEK
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.
Fed up with her husband’s coming home drunk every night, late one evening a wife drove her husband up the mountain to an overlook where they could see the local liquor factory in full swing below. Lights were flashing, machines were roaring, and trucks were pulling in and out.
“See?” the wife said. “They can make it faster than you can drink it.”
“Yes,” he replied. “But you have to admit, I’ve got ‘em working nights.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2002, Donny B. from Wurtsboro, New York. To subscribe, go here: https://store.aagrapevine.org/us-subscriptions.)
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