Getting Sober is Like Learning How to Juggle

I have read somewhere that there was a brain study that looked at a group of people who where told to learn how to juggle. After a few months of practice all of the people showed increased amount of tissue that connected their left and right brain. After reading this I decided that juggling could be beneficial for my own health, and decided to learn how to juggle. There was also an emotional attachment to this goal, since juggling was yet another thing that my father was able to do, and I couldn’t seem to pick up as a child. I through I didn’t have the skills for it, but I now understand that I simple expecting to learn it after few days of practicing, and since that didn’t happen I simply gave up.

Since I never was able to juggle, I had a pretty open mind towards the whole experience. I decided to just juggle for a few minutes a day, and see what will happen. I did not see a fast improvement. Some days I would seem to have a break through, only to go back next day to find out that I was not nearly close to the level of performance that I had the day before. I knew that If I were to begin judging my success( or lack) of I would probably quickly learn to hate the activity, just like I did when I was a little kid. But I choose to keep an open mind towards it, and take it as it came. After all what did I have to lose? I already didn’t know how to juggle.

Another thing that I noticed myself doing is looking at my success as a momentary event, forgetting all the work that I had to do in order to get to that point. As a result of that, I have made expectations for the progress that I should have been making. Those were not realistic expectations, and I would soon find myself being disappointed with my progress, which also would lead me to not want to have anything to do with juggling. I would quickly switch from a feeling of experiencing progress, to a feeling that “I was just not meant to juggle”.

In any case, I was able to identify and replace those thought patterns. I would strive to not have any expectations towards juggling, and simply do it because it was fun. I still do it, and I enjoy it. Jugging provides me with a fun way to take a break from my school work.

This morning I have noticed a similarity between my journey towards sobriety and learning how to juggle. In my recovery I would quickly forget the amount of work it took me to get to the certain point. I would assume that just because I had a good week I was cured, forgetting all the work I had to do in order to have that good week. I noticed that it was harder to let go of my expectations for my recovery, because, unlike juggling that is relatively irrelevant towards my overall happiness, failure to achieve certain results in my sobriety could cost me everything that I care about in my life.

Just like with juggling, however, having those negative though patterns added an additional stress and decreased my overall performance. And it is OK. Everything is OK. I am a work in progress and always will be. My definition of sobriety keeps moving away from me, just like horizon. But this is good, because it forces me to keep walking in the right direction. As an old saying goes “If you find yourself walking through hell, keep walking”. I am walking, and even though I still stumble and fall sometimes, I get back up and keep walking. And I hope I will keep walking for the rest of my life, to get as far in the right direction as possible. Life is a journey, and I want my life to be the journey towards happiness, purity, and love.