The Twelve Steps

Taking responsibility for yourself in the face of everything else.

The Twelve Steps

 

1. Admitting that your life has become too reliant upon sources outside yourself & that because of this you have weakened your own ability to solve your own problems.
2. You have come to the conclusion that there is no power outside yourself which could make things any easier for you---you are in this alone.
3. You make the decision to take your life and make it your own.  This means removing from it those influences from which you might have relied upon in the past---those which clearly did not help you in your own struggle.  These include, but are not limited to, all organized religions, all kinds of superstition, all supernatural thoughts & ideas, & all metaphysical alternatives to the real time reality which you have now come to accept.
4. In taking control of your own life through understanding your own sole responsibility in this venture, you dispose of any moral obligations which you once carried in tandem with the individuals & organizations which tried to instill them upon you. 
5. Since you now understand the false reality fed to you by indulgences in fictions like “god,” “spirits,” and those sources outside yourself that might have dictated rules to you once before---you now admit nothing to anyone but yourself, when it comes to so-called “wrongs.” It is your own sense of being which is developed by you in deciding what actions in life suit you (barring all foreseen societal consequences of course). 
6. You understand that there is no one but you who can improve upon yourself and those imperfections that you alone find with your own actions in the everyday. 
7. You look in the mirror & understand that the only “shortcomings” that may come from assessing yourself are given to you by the world outside you, and that it is you that has perpetuated this self-hatred as a direct result.  In this revelation you reject this policy of self-hatred because you know now that the opinions of that oppressive world do not define the person you see standing before you.  This is your life.  
8. You reassess those checkering your past, whom you have felt guilty about prior to this moment.  In living for this moment, you understand that you can do absolutely nothing to change the past, accept to try and make your own life better in the present. 
9. Communication between two or more people can dissolve because of any number of reasons, none of which are specifically your own fault, as it takes two or more people to keep relationships alive through mutual ambition to do so.  In realizing this, you liberate yourself from having to revive old relations which you have already move ahead of.
10. You identify possible interests in which you may want to further inquire, with the knowledge that you may do so when you find the time to---not being pressured by anyone or anything outside you.
11. Without the use of “prayer” or the tools of other organized propagators of various fictions, you look at your own life and make a pact with yourself that you will begin to develop those areas which you enjoy the most.  You will spend more time doing things that you alone love to do.   
12. Having had no “spiritual awakening,” no “finding of god,” no assimilation to the groups & forces outside yourself, you find no need to try and “teach” or “proselytize” any of your own personal understandings to others---as each individual’s road is a road that they themselves walk alone as well.  You are free to live your own life as you see fit, without the pressure or obligation to set a standard for others to follow.  No one should be following anyone.