Is It worth It? Part II

For Part I Click Here.  It was posted on January 22.

You may commit yourself to your own recovery journey and still not see your loved one enter long-term recovery.  You may not receive that promotion.  You may not save your marriage.  

Does this mean it isn't worth it? 

It depends on whether or not we can see the value in dedicating ourselves to a process.  If we can detach (slightly) from our immediate circumstances and the anxiety of trying to fix a loved one (or whatever the case may be), we may recognize we have our own issues that need addressing.  When we over function for someone else, we tend to under function for ourselves.  In this way, we may see the value in entering recovery to reclaim what we have learned to overlook.  If we look at it that way, we may convince ourselves there is some other outcome worth pursuing.  It's a mental trick (a good one).

The larger question, though, is one of meaning.  Attempting to live someone else's life for them is always going to rob us of our sense of meaning and purpose because we will fail.  We simply cannot live through someone else and so this version of life will never provide the meaning we crave.  We need an alternative.  We need something else to dedicate ourselves to that adds meaning back into our lives in the midst of all of the chaos.  

That meaning, I think, comes from a conscious, intentional dedication to process.