Proactive vs Reactive

For most of my life I was reactive. Life gave me situations and I responded to them. I knew that I didn't have control over very much so I was stuck. Since I had no control over people places or things I gave up on control and slipped into a powerlessness state, believing that somewhere there was a big guy in the sky throwing things at me and my job was to see if I could get out of the way fast enough, I reacted. I still have no power over people places or things but the one thing that my all or nothing thinking missed was my ability to control my subjective perception of people, places or things.
            I can't change anything outside myself but I can decide whether to shut my eyes or put glasses on. If I shut my eyes everything is still there but I can't see it and if I put glasses on objects don't change my site does. I have a choice about how I see things. I have control over my own site. As this really started to sink in I soon changed from reacting to life to being proactive about life. Constantly changing my focus, choosing to shift my mind's eye toward positive things and shutting my eyes to the unnecessary. I can't make bad things go away but I can choose to not focus on them. I decide what I focus on.
This same concept holds true for things both physical and conceptual. I can't remove self pity from the world or from others but by focusing my attention on self worth myself pity becomes very small and insignificant. I can choose what to focus on and that choice makes me proactive because I decide how significant things are in my life. Now start to apply this proactive perspective concept to struggle. I can decide how big or small cravings are. I can decide what I really need and what I don't. I can choose to no longer do addictive things. I can shift my focus away from them making them so insignificant that there is no struggle. I can give things up and never pick them up again. That's right, never. ​

* As I read some of these old writings the thing that sticks out to me was how small my world seemed back then. I was in a small town in Indiana. The world seems so much bigger now, much more complex. I didn't go back to drinking but I will say that most of my relationships either deny that I ever really had  a problem or wish I would start again. Working at the facility was a world where drinking was the thing we were all trying to avoid so much. On this grey morning I just have to remember how much our environment and location shape our perspectives. Some of these ideas when I read them seem ok but most seem simplistic and obvious, they just where new to me at the time. Either way I think it's been good for me to go back through them.