This concept is so simple, that it seems a useless exercise to think about it. Yet, I have seen the evidence in my life and those around me that it’s the one thing that seems to whiz by our minds and out the door, before we have a chance to exercise it. All we have to do is raise up a worry or a fear in our minds and our feelings and we’re down the road to next week, next year. What is it about us that makes us prone to forget the idea of one day at a time?
I know from my own experience that if I have a chance to go to a football game on Saturday and I know this on Monday, in my mind I’m already at the game on Monday. And, when I get to the game, it’s almost a dissapointment, because it’s not all that I anticipated. I’ve talked to people, who had planned a vacation, say a month ahead of time, and they said that it was an anticlimax, when they got there. They were already there in there heads ahead of time.
How much more this is true, when some crisis seems to rear its ugly head. Fear gets us ahead of ourselves. I was reading Bob Newhart’s (the comedian) new book. In it he tells the story told by Danny Thomas. It’s a story about a man, who has a flat tire. The man has a spare tire, but no jack to lift the car and put it on. He remembers seeing a garage back aways and starts toward the garage, thinking to himself that the garage will have a jack. He starts walking and says to himself, “I’ll bet the man will rent me the jack for $2.00.” After walking a while, he thinks, “What if the man sees how desperate I am and he’ll probably charge me $5.00.”
A little further he thinks, “Why he could charge me $100 or even $500!”. He gets to the garage and says to the man in charge, “You can take your $500 jack and put it where the sun never shines!”
Of course the man did this all in one day, but you can get the point. We all have a tendency to think that way. Except our expectations usually take us down the road days and weeks and even months ahead of where we are.
Most of our worries and fears never come out the way we anticipate. My sponsor had me write down a list of things I was worried about and put it in away. After a period of a week or more he asked me what I had been so fearful about a week ago or more. He asked me to get the list and look at it. Some I couldn’t remember, but few had materialized. I’ve heard the same from others.
It’s hard, when we’re so emotionally involved with those we are concerned about. But it gets much easier to pray and practice the third and sixth and seventh steps, turning our concerns over to the God of our understanding. After all, this is the same power, who relieved us from the bondage of alcohol. If God could do that, as Bill said, what more could He do?
Trust does not come easy to the alcoholic. It takes a long time. Most of us demand evidence. If we would stop and look around us, we would see the evidence of this practice in all those around us, who have been able to stay sober a long long time. We should counsel with them and tell them of our concerns and listen to their experience in practicing a day at a time.
I liked the man seeking a jack.