Month: December 2014

Do You Have A Bucket List?

Do you have a bucket list? If so, what’s on it? In all honesty, I didn’t even know what one of these was until I saw a movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in 2007 titled just that. While it’s not one of my all-time favorites, it did stir me enough to begin creating my own bucket list.

But I guess it’s probably best that I first provide a simple explanation for what a bucket list actually is, as I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who don’t know what they’re about. By simple definition, it’s the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. As for those who haven’t seen the film The Bucket List, it’s premise is about two men named Carter Chambers (Freeman) and Edward Cole (Nicholson) who meet each other in the hospital having both been diagnosed with cancer. Carter decides to begin writing a bucket list given his diagnosis, but upon finding out he has less than a year to live, he immediately crumples it up and throws it on the floor in anger. Edward soon discovers Carter’s list and urges him to pursue each of the items and even offers to finance the trip. Carter eventually agrees to take him up on his offer which leads the pair to start engaging in an all around the world exploration doing things such as race car driving, skydiving, climbing pyramids, going on safaris and more. But the underlying spiritual message of the movie is truly about how important it is to give and receive unconditional love to each other and our selves because our time here on earth is really just too short.

For a movie that didn’t make much of an impact on me in 2007, I’ve sure thought a lot about it’s premise in recent years. I’m sure that has a lot to do with the health issues I’ve faced during the same time. And although they’re not terminal on any level (Thank God for that!), they have stimulated me to ponder what I want to do and achieve in this life before it expires. So for now, the following is what I could come up with for my own bucket list and it’s my hope that you too may take some time to make one for yourself.

Andrew Arthur Dawson’s Bucket List

  • Visit the cities of Vancouver, Anchorage, Honolulu, Sydney, Rome, Berlin, Cape Town, Reykjavik, Tokyo, Shanghai, Giza, Dubai, Moscow, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin
  • Become a published author
  • Meet and/or appear on Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show
  • Do motivational speaking about my life’s recovery in front of at least 1,000 people
  • Live in or near Tampa, FL
  • Learn the Spanish language fluently
  • Become a Reiki Master
  • Bungee jump off a bridge
  • Parasail
  • Stay in a tropical overwater bungalow
  • Go on a real African safari
  • Drive a real Nascar on a track
  • Experience zero gravity
  • Watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the street in NYC
  • Zip line through a rainforest
  • See the Northern Lights
  • Become a motivational/spiritual coach
  • See a volcano from the top
  • Be a passenger in a fighter jet
  • Do a silent meditation retreat for 30 days

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Do You Have Serenity More Than Not?

Serenity is defined as the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. It’s probably the most frequently utilized word in Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as all other 12 Step recovery programs. Is this something you have more than not in life?

I never had much in the way of serenity during my childhood prior to becoming addicted to anything. That’s mostly because I was too consumed by the inherent dysfunctionality in my family, because of being constantly bullied in school, and because of being molested at such a young age. I rarely felt calm or peaceful or untroubled during any of those years. But then I found alcohol and drugs.

Alcohol and drugs always gave me the illusion I was feeling serene. During many of the times I was drunk or high, I had plenty of moments of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. Except they never lasted. As soon as each of those drunken binges or highs wore off, anxiety and depression would set in. I’d see all the trouble I had created during those illusionary moments and remember all the ones I had tried to suppress as well. So did I really have any any serenity from drinking and drugging? Not at all, which is one of the main reasons why I became clean and sober from them both and sought for it elsewhere. Unfortunately, I looked for it in all the wrong places.

I spent about 15 years searching for serenity in various people, places, and things and was constantly let down. None of them ever brought me any lasting states of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. In fact, each in the long run only brought me in the opposite direction to that of where alcohol and drugs took me. During all those years though, I did experience a few rare occasions of feeling some true serenity. But they never came from any of those people, places, or things.

They only came from when I tried to get closer to God…

Until I made the decision to solely seek out what God’s will was for me, a life filled with a lot more continuous serenity evaded me. But since doing so, I’ve lived a lot more minutes of being in those states of calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

Thankfully, I haven’t been seriously anxious, depressed, or troubled for quite some time now. And while I still do struggle at times with my health, which has often opposed my level of serenity, I know the only solution to maintaining it is to keep forging a closer relationship with God. Because being with God in my recovery is the only thing that has ever kept me feeling serene more than not…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson