The next right thing

Doing the Next Right Thing

Part of being in recovery means changing almost everything about yourself. As a drug addict, my Modus Operandi was lying, cheating, and stealing. My feelings were either "I'm on top of the world" or "please kill me." This is not a life that anyone wants. When I first entered recovery in 2002 I took all the suggestions that were given to me, except the no relationships for a year suggestion. I wanted to be something other than a junky. I changed everything from my habits, words, thoughts, actions, and eventually my feelings. When it comes to feelings there is more than two emotions. We are very capable of feelings besides good and bad. Feelings are neither good nor bad. They are a response to an event. They cannot kill us and they cannot dictate your actions. Changing my feelings took a lot longer than the other things, but there is a simple recipe to changing all of it. A summary of changing your life can be said in the phrase "do the next right thing!" It sounds so simple yet it can be so hard at times.

If I am walking down the street and the gentleman in front of me drops his wallet and doesn't realize it, what do I do? The right thing is to pick it up and tell him that he dropped his wallet while handing it back to him. The thing that I automatically want to do is to pick it up, see how much money is in it, then throw it in the trash. Do the right thing.

I was in Walmart one time and grabbed a water out of the cooler before I went shopping. I had every intention of paying for the water, but forgot about it by the time I checked out. I had driven a good 4 miles from the store before I realized what I had done. The wrong thing would have been to keep driving and relish in the fact that I got one over on a big corporation. The right thing, which I did, was to turn around, go back into the store, and walk to a register and tell them I forgot to pay for the item. And obviously pay for it. Do the right thing.

Doing the right thing feels strange at first. It is almost like being on a strange planet where nothing seems to be quite right. After doing the right thing for a while it begins to become second nature until your first thought when something happens is the right thing. Doing the right thing becomes as automatic as breathing.

I can't say that I do not do the wrong thing sometimes because I do. My relapse was doing the wrong thing, but I learn from my experiences. Today, I am having to learn how to do the right thing over again. It is a slow process, but it pays off in the end.

Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. - C. S. Lewis