In our moral and personal inventories, we are instructed to create a Grudge List with people, institutions and principles that make us angry or make us sore.
People were not a problem. I had many difficult people that I could add to an inventory ‘Grudge List.’
And similarly, institutions. They were a cinch – CRA, RCMP, churches. There were lots of institutions that I could name and blame.
I could see and name people and institutions with whom I had relationships, in which my defects of character were manifested. But principles—that was another story.
For years I bleeped over ‘principles.’ I just ignored it. As if it were not there. I think that I was subconsciously reading it as ‘principals’ not ‘principles,’ in which case I had already dealt with it under ‘people.’
But one year, in my annual inventory, I stopped short and realized that in all the inventories I had done, I had never identified a principle.
Then I thought, how do I resent a principle? What does it mean, to resent an idea or principle? How could I have a problem with a principle?
Then I thought, well Bill put it there for a reason. So, I asked myself, “what principles do I find difficult and off-putting?”
After a moment of reflection, I thought of one: “I don’t like the principle that I can lose money on an investment.”
There, that was one principle that I did not like. It burned me up. Then quick as a flash another came to mind, “I don’t like it that God seems to hide from me.” The flood gates were opened, “I don’t like that I have to work hard to make money,” “I don’t like that people get sick.” I did not like this, I did not like that. It turns out there are many principles that I don’t like. I just had to focus for a moment.
I added these Principles and others to my Grudge List and worked through the second and third columns of the inventory process, “what happened? How did it affect me? and what is my part?”
Like, “I have to work hard to make money.” What happened? “I worked hard.” How did it affect me? “It made me tired and resentful.”
I could have substituted gravity. “I fell down because of gravity.” “That hurt. I was embarrassed, and I felt pain and shame.”
Or put another way:
- What happened? The principle operated as it was supposed to operate.
- How did it affect me? I did not like the results.
I might have substituted the phrase “I resent this principle” with the phrase “reality sucks.”
Once I completed columns 2 and 3, I turned to the 4th column question, “what is my part?”
I had no part in the creation of the principles or the consequences of them. They are universal laws. They operate for good or bad. The problem was how I reacted to them. I did not adjust to the requirements of reality. I did not like these universal principles and unconsciously resented them, felt bitter indignation that I could lose money, had to work hard, and had to struggle to find God and His will for me.
I did not want to bend myself to reality. I did not like reality.
It took a long time to see principles in my inventories, but when the penny dropped, it was worth it.
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