July 2015
Welcome to the July edition of the Alanoclubs.com monthly newsletter. Alternating your life can sometimes seem like an incredibly complicated and tough thing. Especially if you feel like you’ve failed many times… But there is always hope.
It doesn’t mean you are better than anyone else, not more motivated or disciplined. One great piece of advice is to live a minimalist life. Appreciate the simple things. This can mean many things, but deep down it’s about becoming conscious about what we have in our lives.
We have limited hours in a day, limited years in our lives, limited physical space in our homes.
And we fill all that limited space up unconsciously, packing it to overfull without much thought to whether that’s the best use of our space.
Minimalism is about pausing, and asking what’s necessary. What belongs in this space, and what can we toss out? Is the fantasy we have in our heads, that’s causing us to fill things up unconsciously, really what we thought it would be?
The Laughter and Learning Corner
Two old timers and a newcomer were stranded on an island. After several months, one of them found a lantern on the beach, polished it clean, and out popped a genie. “In return for my freedom, I will grant each of you one wish”, announced the genie. The first old timer said, “I have a loving wife at home, my relationships with my children have been healed, and I have four beautiful grandchildren. I surely do miss them. I wish I were back home again.” Poof. His wish was granted.
The second old timer said, “I miss my family too. And before we were stranded, I had a wonderful career and a beautiful home. I wish to go home too”. Poof. His wish was granted.
The newcomer said, “My wife left me, my children hate me, I lost my house and job. I have nothing to go back home to. The only friends I had in the whole world were my two buddies here on the island, and they’re gone. I sure do wish they were here now.”
Did You Know: The “Four Absolutes” that were part of the Oxford Group
The Oxford Group, a Christian fellowship out of which A.A. grew, had four guiding spiritual goals that they tried to practice to the fullest extent possible. These ideals called for:
Absolute Honesty,
Absolute Unselfishness,
Absolute Love, and
Absolute Purity
