I ran this afternoon in 72 degree weather on November 1st!!! What a great day. My only sadness was that up until today I have not run for a week because of a shin splint that has caused me a lot of pain. Mentally, it was vital that I run this week, yet I did not. I probably should have just powered through the pain and run. I’ll remember that.
As I got well into my second mile all I could think about was self-addiction for some reason. I kept going over a quote – or what I could remember of it at the time – from Donald Miller;
“…no drug is so powerful as the drug of self…there is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”
As I thought more and more about this quote, it began to clear up something in my head. I’ll give you a little background.
For several months now, I’ve had had a grudge against someone who is acting very self-centered. Every conversation I have with this person ends up about this person, no matter what else is going on around us; every trouble in the world, does not amount to the trouble in this persons life; every story of a person that has been wronged, does not come close to how this person has been wronged.
OK, enough….you get the point.
I have held back from several undertakings over the last few months because this person could be involved with the outcome. This problem has affected my ability to follow what I’m impassioned to do at times.
As I was getting to the end of my run, I was feeling pretty good about my assessment of this person and I was looking forward to retrieving the actual quote to back-up my methodical evaluation of him/her. I was sure that this was a textbook example of a self-centered person. Less than a half of a mile from the end of my run, I saw stacked in the woods campaign signs from a campaign that I helped out on last spring. With the leaves falling off of the trees I was able to see what had been hidden all summer. You see, I had replaced sign after sign on the corner adjacent to the woods for the person that I supported during an election. Now I see all of them stacked neatly in the woods. Normally I would have been enraged over this, but for some reason I realized something in myself. I realized that I’m self-centered too. I wanted those signs posted on that public corner, someone else didn’t.
We are all self-centered to different extents. I am no different.
This addiction to myself – to my ideas and ideals – is truly a drug. How do you break an addiction to something that you have such intimate contact with 24/7? How do you get rid of this drug that is pulsing through your veins? Sitting where I’m at right now, it seems as though every addiction in my life is just a manifestation of my addiction for myself.
I was addicted to alcohol for years for a number of reasons, but the main one was because I was constantly thinking about what I wanted, not what was best for everyone around me (and in the end, best for me too).
I am addicted to the latest gadgets to make my life easier or more cool, because it’s all about me.
I’m addicted to coffee,……..OK, we’re stopping here. I’m not giving up my coffee!!!
The point of all this? I’m just as self-centered as the person I’ve got a problem with. The problem is not with the other person, the problem is with me. I can’t change the other person, but I can change me; I can change how I react to the other person.
I’m glad I looked up that quote when I got home, so I could properly diagnose my previous assessment. It’s true, I suffer from self-addiction, I’m a textbook case, and I hope to do something about it.
…running through my mind…
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