Being a jovial person who talks with great conviction can seem pretty convincing to bystanders that they have it all together and that their life is pretty good. It can often lead those bystanders to even want what those people have. Unfortunately, all of that can also be an illusion and that was a hard lesson I had to learn when I began to follow those types of people in my life and place them up on pedestals.
Placing a person up on a pedestal essentially means that one is going to be looking at a person at a loftier level then themselves. That’s a dangerous place to be especially when those people don’t have it all together even though they may be leading everyone to believe they do. In the AA world, I’ve done this a few times when I saw people who spoke with fire and were able to move a whole room of listeners. When I followed some of those people more closely, thinking I wanted what those people had, the illusion that they had it so great in life, often unravelled the closer I got to them. Some were adulterers while others had road rage and major anger issues. There were those who gossiped, judged, and backstabbed at the drop of a dime. Quite a few spent their evenings looking at porn. A large number had massive financial debt issues. And many had just substituted their alcohol and drug addictions with other ones such as caffeine, cigarettes, gambling, or sex. Yet all of them always appeared as happy go lucky people at the meetings and were able to speak with such moving testimony. And this would result in many deluded listeners asking for those people’s phone numbers. The sad part about this is that I was once guilty of this.
God gave me in this lifetime a pretty good ability to speak and write eloquently. Smiling and making other people laugh with my own antics are also two assets I was given. And for years I was able to convince many that my life was the one they should want and all too often I was placed up on a pedestal where the legs should have been kicked out from under me. While I may have appeared like my life was grand, what most never saw was the massive addiction based life I was still living. People were oblivious to the fact that I was sleeping around with newcomers and those still addicted to alcohol or drugs. They didn’t know that I spent hours on the Internet living out my sex and love addiction. They didn’t see how I was often rude and mean to those who were trying to love and care about me. Essentially I created an illusion that people saw what I wanted them to see. Living this way and having people place me up on pedestals only led me down darker paths in life. And for those who I was placing on pedestals, many have since relapsed. Thankfully my pain got great enough before I did too. It was my pain that led me to the decision to turn my entire will over to God to remove all the toxic elements out of my life. This has led me to being a much healthier person inside and out. While in the past, my ego liked people putting me on pedestal, I don’t want that anymore because it just separates me more from God. And while I may still be a good writer and speaker, my thanks for those gifts only goes to God now for the words that come out of me. I’m not a toxic person anymore nor am I telling the world that my life is one that everyone should want. I’ve found over the years that most people who do that are usually pretty messed up like I was.
I still hear great speakers all the time both in meetings and in life in general but I’m not following them anymore or saying I want what they have. I’m not placing them up on pedestals or trying to be like them. The only thing I really am trying to follow now is God and the more I live on that path, the more I’m finding that everything is coming together all on its own.
While some people have begun to approach me lately and indicate they want what it is they feel I have, I am only redirecting them to what I really believe they are seeking, which is a deeper relationship with God. I truly believe that for anyone we see on any given day who is smiling, happy, loving, caring, and kind, that the only reason we may want to be like them is because those are the traits within God. So it really is not any of those people that we should be wanting to be like, following, or placing up on some pedestal now is it?
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson