I have had a bit of a rough week in some ways. For two of the four days that I worked I managed to bend myself well out of shape, hating my job and preaching an internal monologue from a rickety stack of soapboxes. Luckily, I have built into my weekly schedule, a guaranteed dollop of good feelings. Nothing forces gratitude on me more effectively than walking out of the three metal gates that pen in the prison I go to every Sunday night. The time spent with the inmates is hugely rewarding in and of itself but, the cherry on that every Sunday is definitely hearing the magnetic locks clang behind me on the way out. I never had much of a run in with the law –one night in the drunk tank—but that is only because I never got caught doing one of the many things that could have landed me there. It is also very reasonable to assume that I could have ended up there in time if it wasn’t for the consistent (to the point of being unhealthy) second chances from my family and loved ones. When I first went, I remember sitting outside my old treatment center waiting for a ride. I was getting pretty nervous and had the chance to say as much to a counselor that happened to be walking by. I wondered out load what I really had to offer to a bunch of inmates considering that I had never been one myself. Counselor Jeff looked at me with his usual twisted sardonic smile and said “They know how to be in prison, talk to them about how you get by in life”. There’s this guy in there called well, lets say Dan. Dan is up for parole this month and hearing him share about it really brought home the reality of what these guys are living with every day. At some point in November, he will be told if he is going home to his fiancé and newborn baby, or staying in for the rest of his term something like six more months, double what he has done already. One of the major tenants of recovery is, of course, learning to distinguish between the things one can and can not control. With the idea in mind to work on the thing we can and make peace with the rest. This man is in the most tangible black and white opportunity for learning about this that I have come across and the truly incredible thing about it is, he is actually trying to apply that philosophy to his circumstance. Now, by comparison, I started to feel like a fair weather spiritually principled kind of guy. If this man can maintain any semblance of gratitude while wearing an orange jumpsuit and looking out through a chain link fence, I think it is time for me to have a look at my weekly routine in a different light. Something he said in there really cracked me up and stayed with me all the way home. He was talking about how is old lady was meant to come and visit him this week end. He went out to the gate, and picked the last of the flowers on the grounds that hadn’t been damaged by frost, then he sat, staring out the window for hours but she didn’t come. Later, he called her really angry. “And when I called her up she answered the phone just cryin’. And then, shit, all of a sudden it was really hard to be all pissed off and be a prick to her… I mean, I still tried for a while, but it was hard.” It turns out her ride never showed up for what ever reason. But I guess the comparison I was going for is, at work I have been clinging to a state of resentment and frustration. I know that I have the choice to stop at any moment in the day but, fucked if I want to. There is some kind of payoff in it for me. I don’t know, in my vocational history, this is right about the time I would start showing up loaded. I am really starting to understand in a different light why I have lost every job I had in the last seven years from being falling down drunk at work; turns out I hate being employed. I applaud Dan for being able to quickly drop the shitty state of mind he wanted to be in for the sake of the relationship he has with his loved one. If it had been my job on the phone I would still be yelling at her for sure.