The Best Time to Plant a Tree
A birthday message - set aside regrets to change your life today
As of yesterday, I just completed my first official single year of sobriety since I was 16 years old. I turned 35 yesterday, meaning that I spent an entire year at 34 years old completely free of the obsession and desire to drink. What a miracle.
Often, when I was battling alcoholism on my own, I despised myself for all the wasted time and years that I was letting go down the drain. I hated that from the time I was 21 until halfway through my 33rd year of life that I squandered experiences, relationships and opportunities as my own personal fight with alcohol raged on.
Yet, today I feel that I have been gifted an incredible abundance of potential in front of me. I genuinely feel that I have more time and opportunity that I could ever have imagined as I maintain a life in active recovery. The biggest dilemma that I face today is selecting the most meaningful items to pursue to fill that time.
Alyssa said it best in our recent conversation together - the greatest and most unexpected gift that we have both been given since entering into active recovery is time. Yes, I take a lot of time to ensure that I have a daily reprieve from my disease. Yet, despite that, we have been gifted back an incredible amount of time as a family.
I witness fellow alcoholics regretting years of time that they feel that they wasted and will even grow a resentment against themselves for this past behavior. A thought pattern enters in that tells them something along the lines of ‘I wasted my best years being wasted. Why change now?’
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. There is a Chinese Proverb that states it perfectly for those falling into this thought pattern.
The best time to plant an oak tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
Do the work. Strive for the change today. Don’t let your past pull you down. There are miracles and an abundance of time available to you if you decide to put forth the effort.
It’s always incredibly impactful and meaningful for me to witness someone a little more on the advanced side of the house age-wise walk into an AA meeting. To watch a 70 year old take a 60 day chip and have a smile on their face as if they were 7 and had just woken up to a pile of presents under the tree on Christmas morning is magical beyond words.
Nobody out there has squandered enough time to make recovery not worth the effort. Go after it. Pursue it with everything within you. Be willing to do the work, and great things will unfold in your life.
That’s all I’ve got.
Kyle