Thought: ‘If all that matters to you is being best you’ll never enjoy doing well.’
Addictions UK uses Twitter to share inspirational Thoughts every day. This article is based on one of them. Follow us at @addictionsuk.
We are bombarded with claims that only the best is any good. You’ve heard them all … “Coming second is first of the losers” … “Either you are first or you are nowhere” … and so on.
It’s all vanity and arrogance.
If a junior doctor saves my life, I don’t care if he was top of his class.
If you make a real improvement in your life or a real contribution to the good of others, then it is those who cannot value it that deserve scorn, not you.
It is especially important for those who are in recovery to gain strength and satisfaction from what they achieve. Your life may not move forward as fast as you would like. You may have setbacks. But anyone who makes any progress at anything should feel good about it.
It’s really important to have goals and to aim for the best all the time. But it’s equally important that those goals are realistic and that we value every successful step toward them, even when the steps are small or others leap further.
Many of the world’s famous leaders have paid too high a price for their success and often what they spent was the lives and happiness of others. Often it brought them little contentment, only the desperation to find “new worlds to conquer”.
Humanity survives not because a few are best but because the many do some good.
Please contact us now if you need help with recovery from any addiction and especially if you are seeking home-based treatment.
