Moral Inventory Quotes

A victim evokes sympathy, right? Victims are not responsible, right? Victims have the moral high ground… someone else is causing the misery, right? Victims can easily justify why they are right. Victims allow themselves to be stuck in the status quo and they excel at seeing the faults in others, ignoring their own re-sponsibility. They love to take others’ inventory of faults and are excellent at blaming. Victims become hypersensitive to real and perceived injustice, where any slight becomes a reason to reject. Victimization is the toxic wind blowing through families, fanning the fires of dysfunction.

When I can’t find a solution to a problem, when I have nagging doubts, fears, or frustrations, when I feel lost or confused, a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself can make a tremendous difference. Whenever I work the Steps, I tell my Higher Power that I am willing to heal, to find a solution, to feel better. The energy that would have been dumped into worry, tears, and obsession can be turned into positive action. “We all wish good things to happen to us, but we cannot just pray and then sit down and expect miracles to happen. We must back up our prayers with action.

Wasn't this rugged business of taking your life apart, looking at all of it and admitting and remembering and reminding yourself of all the bad - wasn't the big result of it your getting to be honest? "Exactly that," said Ferguson.

In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks. … Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery. Within a few days, something close to a universal trust turned into something akin to universal suspicion. Audits were ordered. Strained or preoccupied behavior was noticed. Most important, the collapse in stock values made irredeemable the position of the employee who had embezzled to play the market. He now confessed.

The wealth of America isn’t an inventory of goods; it’s an organic, living entity, a fragile, pulsing fabric of ideas, expectations, loyalties, moral commitments, visions, and people. To slice it up like an apple pie and redistribute it would destroy it just as surely as trying to share Stephen Hawking’s intellect by sharing slices of his brain would surely kill him.

Decades after that day in the therapist’s office, Donald Trump was elected president. A friend called me and said, “This is the apocalypse. This is the end of our country as we know it.” I said, “I hope so. Apocalypse means uncovering. Gotta uncover before you can recover.” She said, “Oh, God, not more recovery talk. Not now.” “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.

Decline in U.S. Air Pollution Source: U.S. EPA National Emissions Inventory Air Pollutant Emissions Trends Data

Grandma told me once that she’d forgiven him the eternal seventy times seven, but I don’t think forgiveness looks good on either of ‘um. It pains me to look at her.

Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to emotionally and mentally ill persons and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

She could envision Jesus out on the stormy waves calling her to join him, and not to depend on the laws of nature. She’d just need to keep her focus on the Savior and move forward in these tossing waves. To keep looking down on the watery sprays trying to sink her would be her undoing. As her father understood and often repeated, she now saw the storm warning. “You win some, you lose some.” Could Jesus defy natural endings?

She could envision Jesus out on the stormy waves calling her to join him, and not be distracted by the laws of nature. She’d just need to keep her focus on the Savior and move forward in these tossing waves. To keep focusing on the watery sprays trying to sink her would be her undoing. As her father understood and often repeated, she now saw the storm warning. “You win some, you lose some.” Could Jesus defy natural consequences-gravity?

She often felt inconsequential in the world. It was only the sunrise and sunset, the clouds steadily moving overhead that provided her with the perspective of God’s long brush-like movements on earth. A history, an accounting, and miraculous interventions were moving along at a steady pace. Even if she couldn’t see the changes, changes were certainly turning as the hands on the clock turn. Someone was watching and ticking marks on a ledger. “Dear Father in heaven, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, my Redeemer.

Our two taco specials get shoved up on the serving counter, crispy, cheesy goodness in brown plastic baskets lined with parchment paper, sour cream and guacamole exactly where they should be. On the side. There is a perfect ratio of sour cream, guac, and salsa on a shredded chicken tostada. No one can make it happen for you. Many restaurants have tried. All have failed. Only the mouth knows its own pleasure, and calibration like Taco Heaven cannot be mass produced. It simply cannot. Taco Heaven is a sensory explosion of flavor that defies logic. First, you have to eye the amount of spiced meat, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and tomatillos. You must consider the size and crispiness of the shells. Some people–I call them blasphemers–like soft tacos. I am sitting across from Exhibit A. We won’t talk about soft tacos. They don’t make it to Taco Heaven. People who eat soft tacos live in Taco Purgatory, never fully understanding their moral failings, repeating the same mistakes again and again for all eternity. Like Perky and dating. Once you inventory your meat, lettuce, tomato, and shell quality, the real construction begins. Making your way to Taco Heaven is like a mechanical engineer building a bridge in your mouth. Measurements must be exact. Payloads are all about formulas and precision. One miscalculation and it all fails. Taco Death is worse than Taco Purgatory, because the only reason for Taco Death is miscalculation. And that’s all on you. “Oh, God,” Fiona groans through a mouthful of abomination. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?” “Doing what?” I ask primly, knowing damn well what she’s talking about. “You treat eating tacos like you’re the star of some Mythbusters show.” “Do not.” “Do too.” “Even if I do–and I am notconceding the point–it would be a worthwhile venture.” “You are as weird about your tacos as Perky is about her coffee.” “Take it back! I am not that weird.” “You are.” “Am not.” “This is why Perky and I swore we would never come here with you again.” Fiona grabs my guacamole and smears the rounded scoop all over the outside of her soft taco. I shriek. “How can you do that?” I gasp, the murder of the perfect ratio a painful, almost palpable blow. The mashed avocado has a death rattle that rings in my ears. Smug, tight lips give me a grimace. “See? A normal person would shout, ‘Hey! That’s mine!’ but you’re more offended that I’ve desecrated my inferior taco wrapping with the wrong amount of guac.” “Because it’s wrong.” “You should have gone to MIT, Mal. You need a job that involves nothing but pure math for the sake of calculating stupid shit no one else cares about.” “So glad to know that a preschool teacher holds such high regard for math,” I snark back. And MIT didn’t give me the kind of merit aid package I got from Brown, I don’t add. “Was that supposed to sting?” She takes the rest of my guacamole, grabs a spoon, and starts eating it straight out of the little white paper scoop container thing. “How can you do that? It’s like people who dip their french fries in mayonnaise.” I shudder, standing to get in line to buy more guac. “I dip my french fries in mayo!” “More evidence of your madness, Fi. Get help now. It may not be too late.” I stick my finger in her face. “And by the way, you and Perky talk about my taco habits behind my back? Some friends!” I hmph and turn toward the counter.

Instead, we end up with a list of bullet points—an inventory of God’s communicable attributes, those qualities belonging to God that he shares with us. Moral, spiritual, intellectual, and relational qualities make the list. What ultimately happens is that instead of being shaken by a visionary calling that will take everything we have to offer and more, we end up with a static list of attributes that are echoes of the divine in us. Efforts to pin down the precise meaning of image bearer (which the text does not do) ultimately box up the subject.

Although a moral inventory and a daily inventory reveal myriads of flaws in our makeups, still we, as human beings, cannot unravel all our liabilities in the personality. So at night, when I offer thanks to Him for the day’s sobriety, I add a prayer: I ask Him to forgive my failings during the day, to help me to improve, and to grant me the wisdom to discover those faults in myself which I cannot lay my finger on. In short, the need for prayer is infinite! Karachi, Pakistan

Contemporary euro-american occupation of Indian land is an important continuing benefit of the conquest that must be accounted for in the euro-american moral and spiritual inventory. In euro-american legal discourse, a recipient of stolen property is just as liable as the actual thief.

Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions.

Bridging the gap from fear to faith began with another irksome assignment in which I was compelled to share—out loud!—the entirety of my encyclopedia-sized moral, or should I say immoral, inventory. It’s one thing to concede the nature of your wrongdoing to yourself. On some level we all do that. But expose every dark corner of your soul to a stranger? “What on earth does this preposterous activity have to do with quitting drinking?” I asked Stan. “If you don’t haul the garbage out to the curb, your house is gonna stink like holy hell. And that rotten stench always leads back to using.” And so for the next five hours I recounted to a friendly neighborhood priest (hardly my person of choice) the resentments I held against essentially every person I’d ever met, everyone from my mother to the mailman. But even as I recalled some of the most embarrassing and horrific episodes of my life, he never once flinched. And when it was over—my depleted body and exposed soul having been turned inside out—he left me with just one question. “Are you ready to let all of this go?

For Adam Smith, our moral life, as well as our cultural life, is a matter of imagination. The richer the inventory of objects for its diversion, and the deeper our own fellow feeling, the happier we become, but also the more we can perceive happiness in others.

These are the discipline of self-examination and the virtues of willingness, honesty, humility, courage, diligence, and perseverance. They are the principles that enable us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

The externals of English are being acquired by speakers wholly alien to the historical fabric, to the inventory of felt moral, cultural existence embedded in the language. The landscapes of experience, the fields of idiomatic, symbolic, communal reference which give to the language its specific gravity, are distorted in transfer or lost altogether

TO THE ONE WHO INVENTED ZED, ZERO, AND NAUGHT, THANKS FOR NOTHING

MAMA DESERVES AN ANGEL CAKE, BUT SHE GESTATE

HOW TEARABLE A PAPER AIRPLANE THAT CANNOT FLY

NO LITANY OF LOVE LIES WITH A PLEA OF RELEASE

IF AN OTTER GETS INSIDE, YOU OTTER GET OUT THE SMELL!

WINGING IT, BY PHOENIX RISING

Blinded, now, in more than one way, Gail made Kaida co-owner and the sole beneficiary of her home, secretly, away from her other daughters and their heirs. Kaida told her children that she and Gail had created a “trust bequest” for them but advised them to keep the secret from the rest of the family. When the Quit Claim Deed was filed in county records, it was returned to Kaida’s name, not to Gail. Unfortunately for the rest of the family, this mother-daughter relationship had become so intertwined and interdependent, it was difficult to see which one was the host tree and which one was the strangler fig. The tree, now grown tall, would bloom in the foreseeable future. Only a death certificate and affidavit needed to be filed in order for Kaida to claim her mother’s full estate.

SEE DANCERS ON POINTE COMPETE IN THE BALL ARENA

A DESCRIPTED COMEDY IS MOST LIKELY A SILENT MOVIE

COMPRESSION SOCKS ARE A REAL HOSE TO PUT ON

RECORDING THE PAST WITH A DULL PENCIL IS POINTLESS

Two months later, Gail brought Bill home to meet her parents, and Beryl, a nervous mama having heard so much about the gallant Navy boy, served up her best pot roast with onions, a heap of buttery mashed potatoes with Gail’s favorite gravy, and boiled carrots for Sunday dinner. Before dinner was served, they sat on the porch and made homemade ice cream together. Gail sat on the ice cream bucket while Bill churned—abiding the flirting of Baby Lou and worldly Laila, though married with a baby. The Navy boy couldn’t care less about the two sisters because he was busy pouring ice cubes and salt into the bucket, soon hidden again under Gail’s skirt. Coalbert, the working boy, accompanied by his cute girlfriend, Ivy, wasn’t going to be outdone by a crew cut. He started making pig squeals and then said, “Come on, piggy, I wanna kiss you!” This was the story that humiliated Gail the most. She hated when Coalbert told stories from their Arkansas childhood. “What’s with him?” Bill looked at Gail. Coalbert took over and explained how Gail had fallen in love with the baby pigs they had bought to ward off starvation in Western Grove. “She’d run chasing them through the mud and shit, ‘Come on, piggy, I wanna kiss you!’” Gail got off the ice cream bucket and walked into the house. Bill laughed and stayed on the porch with Coalbert and the sisters, shooting the breeze and catching up with stories to embarrass Gail.

WATCH FOR POGO’S ABOUNDING SCHTICK In February of 1957, Rich earned his next leave to visit Gail. The news did the job of making Gail’s choice glad. She offered to meet him at the airport and watched curiously as he stepped off the plane wearing his casual blue airman suit. “Nonstop?” Gail asked. “Of course.” “How does one get off a nonstop flight, Mr. Air Force, if it doesn’t ever stop?” Rich stopped and looked Gail over. He didn’t get her joke. “You have luggage?” she asked. “Yes. One case. Over this direction.” He took her arm and led her down the corridor. “Have you ever lost your luggage?” “No. I haven’t flown commercially much.” “I hear you can sue the airlines if they lose your baggage.” “Oh?” “Yes, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll win your case.” Gail skipped in front of her boyfriend and laughed in his face. “What are you talking about, girl? I have no intention of suing the airlines.” Gail’s teasing ceased. Rich obviously had no sense of humor. At least not her kind. Sobered, she let him take the lead.

MORE ON THIS TIDY STORY AS IT UNFOLDS “Here are your sheets, Mom, warm from the dryer. I’ll make us some lunch while you fold.” Elsie knew not to do everything for her mother because getting her mother active would help her blood circulation and help dispel the swelling in her feet. She dropped the armload of laundry on the ottoman beside her mother’s lounger. “I can’t fold sheets alone. Help me with these.” Of course. What was she thinking? Elsie turned to grasp a couple corners of her mother’s queen-sized fitted sheet. “I need to relearn how to fold these things, anyway.” Mother and daughter pulled and halved, tucked one corner inside another, and brought the ends together like partners in a square dance. Suddenly, Gail growled, “Oh!” Fed up, she grabbed the sheet from Elsie and wadded the whole thing into a roll. “I don’t remember how to do these things! Just stuff them into the linen closet, will you?” She laughed. “Okay. I was hoping you’d teach me how to do it.” “If you don’t know by sixty, daughter, it’s too late! My mom was always so good with linens. You should’a seen her linen closet. It was like the linen closets at Macy’s, all lined up. Mom took pride in her housekeeping, but I just don’t care anymore.” Elsie was noticing how she no longer cared about much of anything either. The proverbial rug had been pulled out from under her, and though she went through the motions of taking Gail’s vitals, dispensing her meds and massaging her feet, they often had little to say to one another. “Mom, why do you think the Bible says so often to remember this or remember that?” “Does it?” Gail gasped, “—talk about remembering?

She should have taken a moment to do this little thing. Why had it skipped her mind? With that small question, an answer crept to attention. “You were unpacking and putting your kitchen together. You were making dinner. For your husband. You were fixing your hair and putting on makeup to please him when he came home. Then, you were distracted and went to set the table for dinner…

Gail bent over the face. Suddenly, she lurched backward. Her hand went to her forehead. “Oh! This is Lloyd Crocker, the love of my life! We were engaged at the end of high school. He was the nicest, sweetest boy, but I messed up.” “You? How did you mess it up?” “Oh, he took me to a party at his friend’s house and I started flirting with his friend for some reason, maybe to make him jealous; I don’t remember. So, Lloyd took me home and asked for his ring back. He said he couldn’t trust me. Oh, I was brokenhearted over him. After I married Rich, Lloyd looked me up and we went for a walk. By then, he had a child and so did I. Oh, how I’ve regretted losing him. I hope he had a good life.” Elsie recognized her mother’s feckless heart had never truly been rehabilitated. She could forget anyone if the next person in line seemed entertaining.

Bereaved, she made it home, thanked the neighbor and headed to bed to sob herself to sleep. Rich’s arrival from work was followed by a rattlesnake response to the two children wandering the house without supervision. Finding Gail in bed, he berated his wife for her selfishness. Gail announced the miscarriage to Rich. “I hope you’re happy.” He shrugged and said, “I’m sorry about that. Comm ci comme sa. You win some, you lose a bunch. I guess I’ll go fix spaghetti for the girls.” She turned over to look him in the eye. “It was a beautiful, perfectly formed little boy,” she said with a tear-streaked face. Rich looked a little stunned at the news. He heard his wife’s voice dull compared to the coursing blood in his ears. “Yes, he looked like you. His curls, his lashes…” Maybe he would have wanted a son, but the wheels of his mind kept turning. “There’s always another night, another baby to be had when he’s out of college, another son to be born when we’re more financially stable.” “If you wouldn’t have tricked me…” “Into this pregnancy,” she finished his thought. “And so, you think you have tricked me back.

WE LIKE VOLCANOS BECAUSE THEY’RE SO LAVABLE

Dorjan didn’t know whether to admire the record keeper who’d been added to his family or just call the man odd for his dedication to recording small things. Some people are record keepers. Lighthouse keepers, for instance. Weather keepers for the almanac. There are organizations with profound record-keeping characteristics such as archivists for arts and history museums, research scientists, political biographers, and the recent Internal Revenue Service which could be up to no good, but what was Rich up to?

It seemed Kaida was a bit too anxious about her mother's estate, all of it, to be exact. It worried Gail. In a lucid moment, considering that Christmas was again approaching, Gail cleverly devised a quit claim deed giving her property to herself, Elsie, and Melanie with Kaida inheriting her mother’s share at her death. This would repair the damages done by her will. She filed this quit claim deed in a cabinet, meaning to ask an attorney about it with her potential bequests and concerns, but it slipped her mind. Instead, she shopped for gloves and slippers and bought other novelties that Christmas. She forgot to bring the deed to light.

Lugilla’s fingers reached to Precious’ hand, but Precious slipped her fingers from the table and placed them in her lap. “I hope you understand, though I trust you and you’ve been good to me, I cannot call you my friend – prob’ly ever – because we are from two separate worlds, Mrs. Sanders.” Lugilla swallowed and tried to sip her tea. “I do. Believe me. I do. But do not hesitate to confide in me or say so if I’m not treating you fair like.” “One day on the other side…” “Yes, one day when Jesus wipes away all tears from our eyes, we will be like Him and we will be true friends, I’m sure of it.

Gail leapt from bed and went to sit in the tiny bathroom, seething with grief and anger. Then tears began to roll down her cheeks. To consider that her husband was arousing her as he spoke of his betrayal made her want to jump into the shower. That he expected this kind of arousal from her in a culture so far flung, confused her. The fact that he was not a virgin and further, that he hadn’t bothered to tell her this before the wedding, felt shameful. Waves of rage washed over the building layers of regret for marrying Rich. The way he played with her in the telling of it! His physical foreplay had readied her to try again, but now a sick feeling of remorse and hatred claimed her body. Gail stepped into the shower and steamed away her confusion, her disgust. Gail wiped her tears and asked Rich to go sleep on the couch while in the same sentence informing him that she would be seeking counsel in the morning. She omitted saying what kind of counsel she would seek. She hardly knew herself.

I DON’T HAVE THE THYME TO BE ROASTED TODAY

FECKLESS, A CRAZY LITTLE THING COLD LOVE

IF YOU LOVE CHRISTMAS THIS MUCH, JUST MERRY IT!

FROM THE START, A WRITER 'DESCRIBES' THEM ALL

IF YOU WANT A PRIZE FOR DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, HERE’S ATROPHY

Kaida's attorney suggested a quit claim deed as the best vehicle for transferring Gail’s home into Kaida's name with a limiting clause for a life estate for Gail. The single page was drafted on his computer. When Gail asked Kaida why her beneficiary deed and her will were not sufficient, Kaida told her the new “trust” was more complete. It ensured that Grant and Paige would finally inherit her property at the end of Kaida’s life. It would also substantially help her build Kaida’s credit back from the bankruptcy to have her name on the deed. Gail certainly loved Kaida and her grandchildren. Gail trusted Kaida’s promise to care for her in her old age, and she believed their funds had become hopelessly co-mingled, so that sitting in the attorney’s office that day, she finally agreed to sign the trust document with a “joint tenancy life estate” on her property. It felt like a business transaction. It was only right to incentivize Kaida for her promise to care for her in her old age.

BIRDS MAKE TRICKY ESCAPES WHEN THINGS GO AFOWL

THE OPPOSITE OF DEFEAT IS A SHOW OF HANDS

THE MOTTO, “IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN,’” INSULTS A FIRSTBORN

CURIOUSLY, PEOPLE TRANSFORM INTO DRAGONS AT THE FLICK OF A CAPE

MAKE ALL THE POUR DECISIONS YOU WANT

ONION, CHEESE, AND SPIGEDIT OMELET, ANYONE?

PILOTS IN A HURRY SHOULD TAKE CRASH COURSES

I HOLD TO THE 'NAUGHTY' IN ANY TUG-OF-WAR

A DOG THAT SWALLOWS AN ENGAGEMENT RING IS A DIAMOND IN THE RUFF

A surreal combination of revulsion and wonder overwhelmed her, the feeling of betrayal, the scrape of a bear’s claw. Being an adult child did not equip her to deflect the wound. “Women ought to interview their prospective partner’s children, don’t ya think?” She muttered, “I mean, from their first marriage, to see if the man they say they want to marry is really the man they want to marry!

I SHOULD BE UPSET THAT A BURGLAR STOLE ALL MY LAMPS, BUT I’M DELIGHTED!

Fairytales do tend to "dragon.

YOU’RE STUCK WITH YOUR DEBT IF YOU CAN’T BUDGE IT

Aren’t you just one in a melon,” she muttered.

An utter success,' her stepdaughters confided to Margaret as they prepared to take their leave. 'The handsome king! That spoof!' Still the rain persisted, and the bishop had lost his hat. Maids danced in and out. Where was the bishop's hat? Alone at the window, Margaret didn't hear. The reflection of the parlor was yellow and warm. She watched it empty out. Then, an interruption. A voice came at her side: 'What do you look at with such interest, Lady Cavendish?' What did she see in the glass? She saw the Marchioness of Newcastle. She saw the aging wife of an aged marquess, without even any children to dignify her life.

Take a moral inventory of ways you may be self-sabotaging and then take proactive steps to change them.

How’s it going?” People have not always greeted each other in this way: they invoked divine protection for themselves, and they did not bow before a commoner the way they bowed before a nobleman. In order for the formula “How’s it going?” to appear, we had to leave the feudal world and enter the democratic era, which presupposes a minimal degree of equality between individuals, subject to oscillations in their moods. According to one legend, the French expression “ça va?” is of medical origin: how do you defecate? A vestige of a time when intestinal regularity was seen as a sign of good health. This lapidary, standardized formality corresponds to the principle of economy and constitutes the minimal social bond in a mass society that seeks to include people from all over. But it is sometimes less a routine than a way of intimating something: we want to force the person met to situate himself, we want to petrify him, subject him to a detailed examination. What are you up to? What’s happened to you? A discreet summons that commands everyone to expose himself for what he really is. In a world that makes movement a canonical value, there is an interest in how things are going, even if we don’t know where. That’s why a “how’s it going?” that expects no answer is more human than one that is full of concern but wants to strip you bare and force you to give a moral accounting for yourself. This is because the fact of being is no longer taken for granted, and we have to pay permanent attention to our internal barometers. Are things going as well as I say, or am I embellishing them? That is why many people evade the question and move to another topic, assuming that the interlocutor is perceptive enough to discern in their “fine” a discreet depression. Then there is this terrible expression of renunciation: “Okay, I guess,” as if one had to let the days and hours pass without taking part in them. But why, after all, do things have to be going well? Asked daily to justify ourselves, it often happens that we are so opaque to ourselves that the answer no longer has any meaning other than as a formality. “You’re looking good today.” Flowing over us like honey, this compliment has the effect of a kind of consecration: in the confrontation between the radiant and the grouchy, I am on the right side. And now I am, through a bit of verbal magic, raised to the summit of a subtle and ever-changing hierarchy. But the following day another, ruthless verdict is handed down: “You look terrible today.” This observation executes me at point-blank range, deprives me of the splendid position where I thought I had taken up permanent residence. I have not proven worthy of the caste of the magnificent, I am a pariah and have to slink along walls, trying to conceal the fact that I look ill. Ultimately, “how’s it going?” is the most futile and the most profound of questions. To answer it precisely, one would have to make a scrupulous inventory of one’s psyche, considering each aspect in detail. No matter: we have to say “fine” out of politeness and civility and change the subject, or else ruminate the question during our whole lives and reserve our reply for afterward.

One of them is the moral inventory that is recommended in the 4th step of Alcoholic’s Anonymous 12 step program.

Objectively hammering out a grim list of chronological facts with a dispassionate voice is a Scribner’s task; writing the story of a person’s own life calls for one to see the icon that lies behind deluge of facts. No raw truths will ever be discerned must less shared by the storyteller to an audience of soul brothers in absence of the author’s resolute effort to shape the pliable clay of human discord, anguish, and incomprehensible wanting into a decipherable fable while aiming to distill moral truths. There can be no story told without psychological investigation. Storytelling includes granting oneself leave to engage in subjective digressions, selection, and prioritizing. We only find important parts of our self, if we engross in thoughtful rumination, explication, and analysis. We cannot make sense of what we discover in absence of attempted identification and positing resolution of conflicts that ongoing quarrels encumbers our conceptual inventory with stabs of guilt and slices of self-loathing. The best told stories lead to therapeutic application of liberal dosages of a healing balm spiced with strokes of thematic juxtapositions and catholic combinations.

In attempting to defend himself against these accusations, Varela drew the court’s attention to the fact that he had never provoked or encouraged racial hatred and that as a historian, he “has the moral duty to tell the truth.” In support of his personal integrity, Varela stated, “Every historian must be skeptical of everything and must also review what has been said thus far. Revisionists question the scope and degree of the alleged persecutions of National Socialist Germany.” In his concluding statement, Varela reiterated his innocence before the court, reaffirming that he had never committed, advocated, or otherwise promoted genocide or any other form of violence directed against innocent people. The court took no apparent notice of Varela’s impassioned protestations of innocence and fined the accused the equivalent of $5,000 in addition to the five-year sentence. In addition, the court ordered that his entire inventory of 20,000 books be consigned to the flames, in spite of the fact that only 30 titles out of 200 had been deemed to be in violation of the law.

LOOKING WITHIN Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 42

How the Twelve Steps Relate to Soulmaking 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. This prompts the ego to yield its ego centrism. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This introduces the idea of a higher unconscious/nous being present as a resource for change. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Here is further letting go by the ego. This links the higher unconscious to God, but it allows those not yet theistic to participate. If one cannot believe in God yet, at least they can still activate the higher unconscious. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In these next steps, we see that purgation is necessary for deeper illumination: 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. This follows Jesus’ instruction: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23, 24, RSV).” 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Here we see the main point I am making at this time—acknowledgement that meditation is an important, necessary step. Taking the issues raised in the above steps to the still point and offering them to God for healing, aids transformation. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Tell me about hell, I told her in my mind. All you had to do today is your moral goddamn inventory and a lot of lying around. On nice clean sheets.