First Things First

First Things First

Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong. . . . How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. -Anne Frank

I can mind my own business

My only job is to stay on my own path. I cannot help anyone who doesn't want my help. If someone wants what I have they will also want to find it in their own way. I cannot really teach anyone. I cannot really save anyone. My feelings of disgust at their blindness and frustration, with their seeming unwillingness to get with the program, color my message. And so often, I help because I feel so much survivor's guilt. What I really want to do is run the other way but I feel too guilty to do that. What I really want is the family I lost to this disease or the family I never had to begin with. Today, I will allow myself to have what I have, to live well, to follow my own path of recovery.