Friday, September 6, 2019

Sept. 6, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Friday, Sept. 6, 2019
Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We must have hope or starve to death. — Pearl Buck

Our ideals, the principles that order our lives, are essential to a healing life. Some of us have lived a pattern in which we did not know what we believed. If someone we liked stated a viewpoint, we might wear it for a while like a new shirt—but with no personal commitment. Others of us have indulged in negativism and hopelessness. Life is more fulfilling when we assert our beliefs and give ourselves to them. As human beings, we are unable to perfectly live out our beliefs, but we become whole men by giving our energies to the attempt.

Is beauty in music, art, and nature a worthwhile ideal for us? Are fairness and justice for all people what we value? Are love and brotherhood ideals we hold dear? When we dare assert these values in our lives, they are life giving to us. They mature us. Reaching for what is worthwhile, rather than cursing what is not, gives us a design for making all our choices, and we have hope.

I will dare to meet my negativism with my ideals. My spiritual health will give me life.

Hazelden Foundation

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