Prioritizing

(3/18/84)
"Thank you for confiding in me about your bad time. I feel like you allow me to see the whole person who is you. I know I can't take any of it away, but I also know, when I had troubles, talking to you helped to put them in perspective. Once I was able to identify all of the problems, resentments, or fears and label them properly, then I could look them dead in the eye and they diminished in size. I found when I got into one of those nagging, rotten times, If I listed (actually wrote down) all of the things bothering me, then prioritized them starting with the most critical, it helped me to see what I needed to deal with first. The other things could wait.

When you said you felt nothing, I understood how that was. Sometimes when I jam my circuits with too much, I get immobilized. It seems to be my rational brain saying, "Wait a minute!" (That is new since being in The [AA] Program. Previously I would scramble in fourty directions botching everything.) Sometimes it lasts for longer that others, but once I get straight in my head what I have to do first, it all falls into place. I am not saying that all goes necessarily to my liking, but it does proceed without panic. It is the panic I can't handle."
from HOOT 'N GIN pg. 157