Chris DeLine

“[W]hen a person experiences nearly identical events and reacts two different ways, then it is not the event which is of prime importance, but the person’s spiritual condition. Feelings come from inside, not from outward circumstances.” —Daily Reflections, October 9

There’s this guy at work who leaves his cell-phone ringer on whenever he’s visiting the office, upwards of three or four times a week. The phone receives a text message and a surge of vibration rattles his desk. He picks the phone up, replies, puts it back down. Another text message, another earth-rumbling vibration, another reply.

Elsewhere someone has left a notification on. I can’t tell if it’s a computer or a phone, but it’s without consistency, all throughout the day. There’s a chirp. There it is again! Did anyone else hear it? Am I going crazy? Don’t they recognize that if everyone left all their notifications on, we’d all be drowned out by the ensuing cacophony?! When will these inconsiderate monsters make the madness stop?!

“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 90) Some days the noise pollution doesn’t bother me at all. Some days it does. (A lot.) These are just a small things, and I know we’re not supposed to sweat the small things, but in the past it’s been the small things that have led me to making some really poor decisions.

What it comes down to is usually the bottom line of where my level of self-care is that day: Have I done the things I know I need to do for myself? If I have, experiences are less likely to conjure the worst of me in response. If I haven’t, someone’s cellphone vibrating can leave me anxious and feeling resentful of their even being born. It’s pretty simple.