Life Does Strange Things
One thing about life, it teaches you what you need to know even if you didn't know you needed to know it. In the 12 Step program there's this thing called the 10th Step. The 10th Step is where you do a daily self-check. When you do a 10th Step you usually end up learning one of two things about yourself.

First-- you become aware of what and how you do what you do. This often leads, as the Step continues, for you to make an amend when you are wrong. It's in that moment that you often discover something about your character defects and why you continue to need to be making these crazy amends. If you are honest with yourself that will quickly lead you to the 6th and 7th steps. These are where you become ready- and then ask your Higher Power- to get rid of your defects of character. Time to turn them over. Time to let them go and try to find a better way of living your life without these things about yourself that seem to get you into trouble.

There is also a second thing that you can learn. You can also ask in the midst of that personal inventory whether you are doing the things in your life that you need to be doing. That is a quick jump then to the 11th Step where you try to understand what your Higher Power's will is for you and then ask for the power to do it. This may be the most important step of all 12 (well, at least one of the most important) because it can certainly move you off square one and the experience of your powerlessness to a new way of living.

This step, then, can become a significant challenge to one's belief system or vocation.

It can raise questions like, "Am I hanging on to something that should be let go of, or is what I'm hanging on to some core belief that is worth keeping?

These are never easy questions to answer. But they are deep in the lessons that life hands us. They are what life at least tries to teach you.

Being a student of life can be such a difficult thing to do.