Paying Dues - Day 1

Did you ever get a punch card from a coffee shop?

If you buy nine coffees, you get the tenth free. Even though you’re not paying for it, you know this purchase isn’t free. The price was factored into earlier purchases. But still, getting something free is sweet. We feel like we deserve what’s handed to us.Have you ever had the experience of moving into an apartment or house, and even though it looked okay, the decorating wasn’t yours? “I’ve got to do something to make this mine,” you think, even if it’s just painting a wall.Many things in life are like that. They don’t feel like ours—and we don’t feel like we deserve them—until we put time and effort into them. Then we feel like they belong to us.In Alcoholics Anonymous, there are no dues or fees. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stay sober. But we do certain things. We work the Steps. We go to meetings. We work with other alcoholics. And although our sobriety is a gift from God, we begin to feel like we deserve sobriety by working to make it ours.Paying dues applied in my career as a writer. Struggling for the first seven years, making almost nothing for the work I did, wasn’t just something I had to do to acquire new skills. By putting that effort into my career, I felt like I made it mine. And I know we can’t own or possess a person, but the giving we do for our children—or for other relationships—isn’t just for the other person. Giving bonds them to us.Most of us like the concept of getting something for free. But little in life can compare to feeling like we deserve what we’ve earned.

Value: Whether it’s building a relationship or investing in our sobriety or our career, paying dues cheerfully is the value this week.

From the book: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact