Billiette Calling! To Succeed

AA FROM THE WOMAN’s SIDE

To Succeed by Billiette S.

You gotta have hope, lots and lots and lots of hope –
‘Cause if you don’t have hope, all you’ve got is despair.
You gotta have faith, lots and lots and lots of faith –
‘Cause if you don’t have faith, all you’ve got is doubt.
You gotta have love, lots and lots and lots of love –
‘Cause if you don’t have love, all you’ve got is hate.
You gotta have courage, lots and lots and lots of courage –
‘Cause if you don’t have courage, all you’ve got are fears.
You gotta have smiles, lots and lots and lots of smiles –
‘Cause if you don’t have smiles, all you’ve got is tears.
You gotta have God, lots and lots and lots of God –
‘Cause if you don’t have God, all you’ve got is hell.
You gotta have AA, lots and lots and lots of AA –
‘Cause if you don’t have AA, all you’ve got is another drunk.
So, if your life is full of despair, doubt, hate, fears, tears, hell,
and a drunk, and you want a better life, what you need now is lots
and lots and lots of AA, God smiles, courage, love, faith, and hope.
AA does not guarantee to open the gates of Heaven to let you in.

Receiving Billiette’s Call – To Succeed you gotta have…

Two of Billie’s You gotta have to succeed stand out for me – you gotta have love and you gotta have courage. Love & Courage are in the titles of two books Rollo May wrote that both Billie’s and I read and discussed. One is Love and Will (1969) in which May “articulates the principle that an awareness of death (Mortality salience) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_salience] is essential to life, rather than being opposed to life.” The book goes on to explore “how the modern loss of older values, whose structures and stories provided society with explanations of the mysteries of life, forces contemporary humanity to choose between finding meaning within themselves or deciding that neither oneself nor life, has meaning. This so describes AA’s mission – addressing “life has meaning and it is one’s task to find it within him or herself”. In this video The Human Dilemma [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cT6qBtYJ-90] Dr. May discusses The Dilemma we humans face – may we suggest taking notes for our later discussions.

The other book is The Courage to Create (1975) where May suggests that “Listening to our ideas and helping form the structure of our world is what our creative courage can come from… May encourages people to break the pattern in their life and face their fears to reach their full potential”. May suggests that anxiety is the gateway to creativity, so understanding anxiety is our task. This is a huge task, however, we have many resources to help us and we begin with Time Magazine’s Behavior: Yes Begins With a No published June 22, 1970. As a photographer, I especially like the angle on the Camera Position 158: The Courage To Create and then my psychology training is really satisfied with Ego is The Enemy – below is the full audiobook. There is time now to get your cup of coffee and settle in to listen and do take some notes, we will be addressing these lectures as we move forward.

Rollo May, Lecture 1: Psychology and the Human Dilemma