“If I am powerless over it, why do I keep trying to exert my power over another person’s drinking?” (ODAT, 12 July)
Another person’s drinking or another person’s thinking. Imagine leaving everyone else to be wrong, never ever having to correct another person unless it’s within my vested authority to do so? I can even leave people to be wrong about me. All of this considerably frees my schedule and mind. These days I can let a whole day go by without even considering what someone else might be thinking.
“Let go and let the Divine Power, which works in all things, work in this, too.” (ODAT, 12 July)
Most problems resolve themselves without any intervention from me. Where intervention is required, I will be directed very clearly. Intervention is rare, and, if I find myself constantly having to intervene, something is going wrong. Clearly, the interventions are not working, or I would not constantly be finding myself having to intervene in the first place.
What is required is a different mode of being, typically consisting in total non-reaction, non-interference, non-intervention, just quietly getting on with whatever my duties are, if any, in the situation, and not escalating or turning dramas into crises.
“I will lighten my burden by dropping that part of it which does not belong to me.” (ODAT, 12 July)
Which part might that be? The past, the future, other people, the world, me, my life, and the results.
That leaves me operating the only three controls that are mine: my beliefs, my thinking, and my behaviour.
Even with those, I do not really have a free hand.
My task is to ask God what the ideal beliefs, thoughts, and behaviour are and then to implement those consistently.
“Keep thyself first in peace and then thou wilt be able to bring others to peace” (ODAT, 12 July)
If change is brought about via me in the environments in which I operate, it is brought about chiefly through non-action, non-reactivity, nobility in the sense of noble gases.