The promises

"To read your own mind is to look at your self and read your soul. Hatred becomes love and that is the path I am working on." According to Richard Gere.

Ok, so working on my soul will make me like me? Is that what you're saying, Richard? I think it's what AA is saying, too. If I work with my higher power and develop a spirituality, things will get better. The promises will be fulfilled; I'll like myself. The AA promises:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Sometimes slowly. I hope not too slowly.