Month: June 2014

Is My Birthday Truly That Important?

Is my birthday truly that important? This is the question I’ve been asking myself since I turned 42 a few days ago.

As a kid, I always loved my birthdays because my parents usually gave me tons of presents and lots of surprises. Each year my birthday cake was also quite unique and special too. (FYI, my favorite was definitely some type of an ice cream cake!) By the time I turned 21 my birthdays began to change. There weren’t any big parties being held for me anymore, and presents were becoming less and less, until the only thing I was getting from most people who remembered was a card.

When I reached that 30th milestone, my partner at the time threw me a big celebration where I was the center of attention again just like I had been as a kid on each of my birthdays. For the next nine years, I did everything I could to make each of my birthdays all about me just like my 30th had been. Unfortunately, nothing really ever came close to meeting any of those expectations. This consistently led me to feeling down on most of those birthdays.

I tried to recapture the glory of my 30th birthday once again when I hit the next milestone, my 40th. Instead of allowing someone else to plan that day though, I controlled much of the process and invited as many people as I knew to come to my party. When only a handful of them showed up, with most of them bringing nothing more than a hungry stomach, I became very dejected and even somewhat angry.

Zoom forward to two years later, and it’s now the morning of my 42nd birthday. It’s then I discover my partner has completely forgotten about it, which leads me to totally unraveling at the seams. I then proceed to berate him about being self-absorbed and self-centered, but that sits so uncomfortably within me after doing so, it leads me to ask the question I began with, is my birthday truly that important?

The irony I discovered when that answer came is one that was pretty hard to swallow. I realized that I was the one who has actually been self-absorbed and self-centered for years, not only on all of my birthdays, but on most other days as well. Until just a few years ago, I was living almost my entire life in this way. But through my work in 12 Step recoveries, I started seeing the root of all my problems was this selfishness. That became the catalyst that started my shift in life to one of selflessness, but with one exception. I continued to allow myself to believe that the day of my birthday should be the one exception where I’m still allowed to be fully selfish. What I wasn’t seeing was how that belief was the exact reason why I rarely enjoyed most of my birthdays since the age of 21.

That selfishness blinded me from truly seeing the love I did receive on any of my birthdays. Instead, the only thing I generally saw was what I wasn’t receiving, and all that did was make me miserable and complain about most of them. Looking back on each of them now with this realization, I can see how there were many wonderful things I received each year. Whether it was a phone call, a warm embrace, a card, a small gift, or some other loving gesture, I always did have something positive happen every single birthday and my 42nd was one of them. Between a dozen phone calls, several e-mails, a few text messages, some song singing voicemails, a couple of incredibly special gifts, a round of applause at a recovery meeting, many warm embraces and handshakes, and two great meals, I genuinely had a pretty awesome birthday.

So is my birthday truly that important? The more I step out of my own way and remove more selfishness out of my life, the more I see probably thinking so is being selfish itself. But the more I let go of that unwanted trait, the more I’m able to see the real truth such as this…There have always been others who felt I was important enough to them, to show me their love on each of my birthdays, including my partner who did so later that night…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Fault In Our Stars

There are plenty of films that have moved me to tears. Some of them have fallen as tears of joy while others have fallen as tears of sadness. The Fault In Our Stars is one of those rare ones where my tears fell somewhere in the middle.

The movie centers on Shailene Woodley as Hazel, who is living her life as best as she can with Stage 4 cancer. Through a support group she’s attending, Hazel meets a boy named Augustus, played by Ansel Elgort. While Augustus is really only attending the group for his friend, he too has battled the same disease, except his is in remission and resulted in a partial loss of one of his legs. Through charm, wit, and sheer confidence, Augustus soon gains the friendship of Hazel. Based upon a popular young adult novel of the same name, The Fault In Our Stars goes on to tell the story of Hazel and Augustus falling in love and then experiencing the tragedy of their disease as well.

This movie was reminiscent of another that moved me in the very same way. The title of that one was The Notebook. It’s generally rare that I’m able to feel my emotions so well throughout an entire movie. In most cases, I cry for a few moments in various parts of one or most likely at the end, but never throughout. The Fault In Our Stars and The Notebook are two of those movies that I sniffled almost from the very beginning to the entire end. But there was one thing that moved me so much more so in The Fault In Our Stars and it deals with accepting life on life’s terms and making the best of it.

Here were two teenagers whose love for each other was far stronger than their disease of cancer. They were able to look beyond their limitations and saw life for its potential. While I know the story is fictionalized, the reality is that there are many people in this world just like Augustus and Hazel. They do their best to find happiness in life regardless of their circumstances.

Joni Eareckson Tada is a real-life example of someone who has done this very thing. As a young teenager, she was an aspiring athlete who dove into water one day and broke her neck when she hit the bottom. After years of struggling with acceptance over being paralyzed from the neck down, she began to find peace and happiness in life by growing a spiritual ministry that eventually would inspire countless people such as me.

It’s no secret that I too have struggled with my current health issues in life just like Joni has. The only thing that has kept me going and given me any moments of peace and happiness is when I’ve been serving the God of my understanding. Whether that’s done in the words I write, or in the recovery work I do, or in any of my other day to day actions, I do my best to also accept life on life’s terms and make the best of it, just like August and Hazel did. Some days are much harder than others, but I’m always grateful for those where I feel truly happy inside, regardless of my current circumstances.

I’m truly thankful for the movies like The Fault In Our Stars that continue to remind me that no matter what I’m going through in life, that unconditional love and light can get me through anything…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Seldom makes long lasting friendships…”

“Seldom makes long lasting friendships…”

These are a few of the words that appear under my Chinese zodiac (RAT). I see them every time I dine in an Asian restaurant that has those placements with the horoscopes printed on them. What’s frustrating about those words is how much truth they’ve held so far in my life.

I’m 42 years old and have approximately two people in my life that I met long ago and still regularly keep contact with. One is someone I met in my junior year of college, and the other is someone I met in my third year of sobriety. There are many people I know though who still have friendships with others that date as far back as grade school. Sadly, I don’t anymore, but I often wish I did. What’s ironic is that since the 11th grade, I’ve never had a problem making friends and I always had plenty of them at any given point in time. The downside is that none of them have ever lasted that long.

Through the 12 Step recovery work from all of my addictions, I now understand the reason for this…

To have a long lasting friendship develop, it takes a lot of effort. From the start, I was never quite good at doing that unless it was with someone I was physically attracted to. In the cases where I was, I definitely made a ton of effort, but that was solely due to my self-seeking ways that were coming from a budding sexual addiction. In most cases, when I got what I wanted from those people, I stopped investing the heavy effort into getting to know them, and those connections would quickly end. When I didn’t get what I wanted from those people I was physically attracted to, I’d usually toss the connection out the window and move on. That’s how self-centered I was and that selfishness is the main reason why I have seldom made long-lasting friendships.

Over the years, so many people have come and gone from my life, many of which invested plenty of time and effort trying to get to know me. But if they weren’t my type, I rarely responded to their labors. It saddens me that I was this way for so long, but it surely does explain why my two closest friends from high school dropped out of my life long ago.

Today, this isn’t the case anymore. I don’t base the friendships I’m working on because of a physical attraction. Instead, I look at the spiritual side in everyone I meet and my only stipulation for making the effort is that the person isn’t severely active in any addiction.

I have a good number of friends now in the city I’m living in and I pray my efforts will eventually lead them to be long lasting. I’m thankful to my Higher Power for all those who have stuck around through all those years of addiction and self-centeredness. Besides the two I mentioned already, there are a few others I love dearly whom I hope will remain in my life for years to come. All I can do is make the effort not only with them, but with all the people I consider to be my friends in life right now.

Selfishness, self-centeredness, and addictions really do destroy the possibility of making any long lasting friendships. I lost plenty of people that could have been life long friends because of those things. Thankfully my addictions aren’t in charge anymore when I make a new friend and I’m making an equal effort with all of them now. So hopefully over time, those few words from my Chinese horoscope won’t be able to accurately describe me anymore. In the meantime, I’ll continue to practice gratitude for those friendships that truly have been long lasting in my life so far…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson