How Important Is It?

Humility smashes what the ego deems necessary

I love to be right. I will right fight until I am exhausted. The need to be right, to be heard, to be understood, is a powerful character defect. The need to be right gives my ego the room it needs to reassert itself and make me feel both powerful and miserable. The illusion of control drives me when I know I am better than and more wise than others. But I ultimately feel miserable because I know this is terribly wrong. I have no actual control, and I want to live a life that loves others today, not controls or dominates them.

Al-Anon teaches a very powerful slogan to combat this ego inflation and self-righteous smugness: How Important Is It?

How important is it that I win every quarrel with my child? With my spouse? With my sponsor? With my sponsees? With a social media troll?

How important is it that my work sees I am doing a good job? That I am the best and most willing employee? That I am doing the best teaching with my students?

Do I need to be right all of the time? Where is there room for God in that?

I can even take part of the St. Francis Prayer—a beloved prayer used in AA in Step Eleven and in Al-Anon in the Just for Today bookmark, and twist it to show that I am just trying to bring truth and light to the world:

…that where there is error, I may bring truth…that where there are shadows, I may bring light…

Just more self-justifying nonsense that my ego loves! I can use any piece of AA or Al-Anon literature out of context to puff myself up. After all, spiritual texts have often been used out of context to justify all kinds of terrible behaviors and practices.

Today may I consider the entire Eleventh Step St. Francis Prayer to guide me in ego-deflation. May I acknowledge my Higher Power’s role in my life. God wants me to lead with love in all things and in all ways. Causing strife, both external with continual conflict with others and internal with conflict within myself, is the opposite of God’s will for me. My prayer is that I—and you—may experience God’s peace as we practice this new humility. And may we always consider:

How important is it?

“‘Lord, make me a channel of thy peace—that where there is hatred, I may bring love—that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness—that where there is discord, I may bring harmony—that where there is error, I may bring truth—that where there is doubt, I may bring faith—that where there is despair, I may bring hope—that where there are shadows, I may bring light—that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted—to understand, than to be understood—to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.’”

-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 99 (Step Eleven)