Pride or Serenity?

I had to clean up my side of the street today. Keeping my pride in check wasn't easy. It was hard not to start pointing out the trash I saw on the other side of the street. There was a part of me that felt compelled to ask the other person if they were going to pick up all that crap strewn around their feet. I saw it, didn't they see it? If I was cleaning up my side, by golly then I wanted them to clean up their side, too!

That's not how it works, though. I was there to clean up my side- it was about me, it's not about them. I have to allow them to clean up their side when they are good and ready to do so. Every time that voice began it's chattering- yeah, but they did this; yeah, but they said that, but, but, but...I had to remind myself of how it works. I had to accept the possibility that they might not give a damn about the condition of their side of the street, (but they did, a little).

I have to admit: cleaning up didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling right off the bat. That little voice of my fairly large ego was wounded and pretty perturbed not to get his way. He was annoyed that things weren't handle like they used to be handled. My ego ran the show when I drank, now not so much. This morning would have went much differently had I been under the lingering influence of alcohol. I would have not been able to do the right thing. Even if I had not drank since the night before, my thought processes would have continued to be dictated by alcoholic thinking and I would not have had the tools given to me through a program of recovery.

When I drank, it was normally someone elses' fault. Even if I knew that I had played a starring role in the predicament and an apology needed to be delivered, it was based on the condition that the other person was going to have to own up to their part and deliver their own apology. Expecting this from the other person never really worked like I thought it should. A few things usually happened at this point,

1) that I came off as insincere because I was in effect blaming them for my actions

2) I would get so worked up about what they had done to make me do what I had done that the apology turned into an argument which cancelled out the reason I was there in the first place: forgiveness (not a chance in hell now!)

3) if I did keep my mouth shut, it was out of pure anger which I would stew about for a few days to let the pressure build, then finally let it spew, creating yet another situation I needed to make apologies over

I look back and see the countless times I recreated and enacted this scenario and every time I did it, I expected a different outcome. The difference today is that it's over. I said my peace, I accepted forgiveness, and that was the end of it. No additional ill-feelings were given birth to today. My ego was not all that thrilled, but I haven't stewed about what was said or what I didn't say and most importantly I haven't had to drink over it.

What it boiled down to for me, is this: what is more important- my pride or my serenity? My pride isn't going to keep me sober.