the student becomes the teacher

hi all, no posts since Irene hit this area and caused some pretty serious flooding. our house was just fine but many of our neighbors are still not back to normal. all of this loss has really caused me to reflect--on everything. on what is important and what is not.

last night at work a young girl that i work with says--i just dont understand what the point of life is? we grow up, we pay bills and taxes, we die. i wanted to say something. i wanted to offer an opinion, or some possibilities even but i didnt. i just sat there and thought. shit, i get why she (at 16) does not understand what she thinks life is about but what is my excuse? what is the point of all of this?

i had in my head a whole assortment of thoughts. some buddhist stuff about how pain and suffering are part of life and how we can choose how we respond to it--what we make of it. i thought about some spiritual stuff like the purpose of life is to love. mainly though i just sat there and let the question float around us. a few other kids had similar questions and thoughts. it was hot and rainy. the generators were still on from the power outage from the hurricane. everyone was tired including me. in that moment things felt pretty grim.

about ten minutes later we left that building and saw the main lights on. the power had come back. everyone started clapping and was happy. grateful. myself included. the question though has stayed with me. what is my life's purpose? and how important is it to remember it when it is dark and challenging? my guess is that knowing ourselves and our life's purpose is very important.

i remember a book on addiction that said the people relapse for 2 reasons 1)denial creeps in and they convince themselves they no longer have a problem or 2) they know they have a problem but they lose the desire to stay sober. essentially, they feel hopeless about life and give up trying. the point of this was to illustrate how important spirituality is to recovery--we need to find meaning in life so that we dont give up on ourselves and retreat into the warm welcome numbness of hiding in alcohol or drugs or food or gambling or wherever else we like to hide.

so today i have committed myself to meditating and developing more of sense of my own purpose. more of a sense of what i am meant to do and what i can give back. sobriety is one gift that we really only get to keep by giving away. xxk