Spiritual Gold-Bricking [Unrealistic Inventory]
April 5, 2008 by Mark
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Bill Wilson tells a pointed story about a group of fellows finding fully minted gold coins in “The Language of the Heart”
The story creates a symbolic picture graphically which tells Bill “that I may attain ‘humility for today’ only to the extent that I am able to avoid the bog of guilt and rebellion, and that fair but deceiving land which is strewn with the coin of Pride.”
He then offers that “this is how I can find and stay on the Road to Humility which lies in between. Therefore, a constant inventory which can reveal when I am off the road is always in order.”
That seems to me to be closer to the Tenth Step than the Fourth. What follows though, is a few sentences that I can relate to what I heard recently from many folks who were “taking responsibility” for their actions but weren’t really working a Fourth Step??? It sure is one thing to speak in a meeting and sound good and another thing to go “out there” in the real world and not do the same things over again. I.E. – nothing changes if nothing changes.
“Of course, our first attempts at such inventories are apt to prove very unrealistic. I used to be a champ at unrealistic self-appraisal. I wanted to look only at the part of my life which seemed good. Then I would greatly exaggerate whatever virtues I supposed I had attained. Next I would congratulate myself on the grand job I was doing. So my unconscious self-deception never failed to turn my few good assets into serious liabilities.”
I can identify – a master of self-delusion…
“This astonishing process was always a pleasant one. Naturally this generated a terrible hankering for still more ‘accomplishments,’ and still more approval. I was falling straight back into the pattern of my drinking days.”
Please… be paying attention.
“Here were the same old goals – power, fame, and applause. Besides, I had the best alibi known – the spiritual alibi. The fact that I really did have a spiritual objective always made this utter nonsense seem perfectly right. I couldn’t tell a good coin from a bad one; it was spiritual gold-bricking at its worst. I shall forever regret the damage I did to people around me.”
The keyword is change.
