On Concept, Action, and The Goal

I know of a person who frequents a very technical hobby forum, whose signature reads, "I am, and always will be, a newb."

That resonated with me, thinking about life, and working the Steps. That we're always to be a work in progress, never finished. On a staircase that keeps going, a lifelong ascent.

I don't like to be a coward. But I also aim for the discipline of prudence. I've been thinking a lot about my motivation to blog, and what it is, and what it perhaps should be. And I do know this: I want to be prudent, but I do not want to be cowardly. I will push my envelope, discussing things here as I write. I will lean into my fears, go where I haven't gone before, traverse the Land of New Territory.

But at the same time, the Executive Committee, the one that makes the Executive Rules, has made it quite clear to me that these efforts are not, for me, to be self-indulgent narcissism. If I'm to write, I'm first to think, and then I'm to work.

Writing should lead to work, in the moment, in the real world.

Which brings me around to my topic, this post: On Concept, Action, and The Goal.

I put up what was for me a courageous post earlier today, and as God would have it, I managed to do that sandwiched between two Step 11 meetings in the day. As I look back on the day, I see the elegance of that. I take no credit, but do appreciate it.

If there's one thing I'm profoundly grateful for in my Program, it's that as I work, I first get conceptual understanding of what the Program means, How to Live.

One of the things I think about a lot is how the Steps separate out, quite distinctly, the coming to willingness from the initiation of action. They are not separated only by words, or clause. They are built into entirely different, self-contained steps. And there's a reason for that. They are entirely different entities. You can do without thinking. You can think without doing. We are called to do both, mindfully.

My whole Program is like this for me. I first grapple with the concept that emerges. I need to wrestle with it in my mind, turn it over and examine it, explore it from different angles. Try to understand what it means. Try to come to terms with it, and accept it. And then decide on willingness.

And after willingness settles in, I begin to plan for action, for actualizing implementation.

The thing is, without this separation of concept from action, I would tend to act, but without the same sense of deliberate purpose. The deliberate purpose is a gift for me, because it is the directional, the set of instructions, the blueprint for me, for... a goal.

I've come to realize that for me to sit around and generate goals is not prudent. Goals will flow from being in the moment, from Practicing These Principles in All My Affairs. That is to be the source of my goals, not my ideas of how life should pan out. In other words, Goals will come to me; I need not go hunting for them, but rather focus on the now, on the Practice, and they will present themselves.

And it turns out to be one of those things that is inversely simplistic. What I thought to be a complex web of goals I needed to determine, stretching out into the future, turns out to be only one. The Goal.

And The Goal, for which I labor, for which I stay in the moment, is to remain teachable to the Concepts presented.

Then, it's just a matter of Acceptance - which translates into willingness - and getting down to work. Once I get the Concepts, the rest follows.

And I thought it was going to be complex. But God's an ironic kind. He makes the most powerful the simplest. Gotta appreciate God's little touches.

So now that I understand the Concept behind my writing - that I'm to think first, and result in work for my Practice - the rest flows, and I know how to proceed.

I feel good about that. Settled.

-The Traveler