"At some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." — Big Book
A lot of us read that line and thought, Man, I gotta stop doing that. The problem was we had no idea how. So we got more serious, more careful, and more determined not to make mistakes. Not a bad start. But eventually we had to ask a different question: What are these decisions based on anyway?
Most of the time they're driven by character defects of self that show up naturally in everyday life—fear, pride, resentment, control, self-pity. A guy cuts us off in traffic and makes us swerve out of our lane. The old reaction might have been yelling, chasing him down, or introducing him to our favorite finger. It happens. But now we're starting to see that anger doesn't end when the incident ends. We carry it to work, bring it home, and replay it in our heads. A five-second event turns into a five-hour resentment.
That's where Step Six becomes practical. Instead of trying to control every situation, we start looking at what's driving our reactions. We go to the source. We ask God to help remove the defect instead of trying to manage the whole world. That doesn't mean we become passive or ignore real problems. It means we learn the difference between reacting and responding.
The miracle isn't that life stops cutting us off. The miracle is that every little thing no longer has the power to ruin our day.
Have you ever traced a resentment back to the character defect feeding it? What did you find?
