For Today - Willingness

I don't like this morning's quote by Alexander Smith.  It doesn't resonate with me at all so I'm not opening this post with it.

Instead, I like the closing words of the January 2nd entry For Today:

I pray to be willing to give up more of my old, mistaken notions that I cling to as absolute truths.

It is not yet 7 o'clock this morning, dark and cold.  As I consider how I have been living, I find myself ashamed.  My abstinence has been non-existent.  I have resorted to food in an effort to stop feeling so awful.  To stop the nightmares.  To get some carbohydrate-coma induced sleep.  But it is a shadow existence.

My Big Book search for willingness uncovered the usual helpful passage that sums up where I am and where I want to be:

When I am willing to do the right thing, I am rewarded with an inner peace no amount of [food] could ever provide.  When I am unwilling to do the right thing, I become restless, irritable, and discontent.  It is always my choice.  Through the Twelve Steps, I have been granted the gift of choice.  I am no longer at the mercy of the disease that tells me the only answer is to [compulsively eat].  If willingness is the key to unlock the gates of hell, it is action that options those doors so that we may walk freely among the living.  [Big Book, p.317]

So for today, I pray to be willing to give up more of my old, mistaken notions that I cling to as absolute truths.  Food is not the answer to all the questions I have.