A Thousand Times

When I first joined AA, I thought the Big Book’s program of action was saying a thousand things. I slowly began to understand that it is saying a few simple things a thousand times. ~ Drop the Rock: Removing Character Defects – Steps Six and Seven

Oh, I’ve done that a thousand times.
Have you? Can you verify the figure?
I’ve got a thousand tasks to do today.
Really? List them! I bet you can’t name
a hundred. The emotion inherent
in that thousand word ranges
from terror to cockiness.
Other words can be that way…
filling you with confidence
or terrifying you with impossibility.
Neither is true, essentially,
the innate truth. They’re words
like all and never, assertions of fact
that seldom are. If you’re going to count
your transgressions, your defects,
your missteps the fear-forging meaning
fulfills its own prophesy. But if you rely
on thousands of nudges, tips, coincidences,
serendipities, the number will still loom huge
but the confidence level lever
swings wildly to the favorable side.