We are egomaniacs with an inferiority complex. ~ Jhe T quoting Alcoholics Anonymous

I would have told you everybody was created equal but I didn’t believe it in my heart. ~ Joan

We may not believe we’re the brightest crayon in the box
but you darned sure better! When I came  into recovery rooms
I heard folks talking about higher on the ladder than they were,
lower on the ladder…it rang true but I was quite sure my vision
had been right, that it wasn’t ladders but a series of pillars.
I, of course, occupied a rather highly raised pillar. A few…
darned few…were innately superior to me, and I looked up to them
without having a clear enough view to know they were really
just people, too. I remember one, from high school then college.
Leta Ruth Allen. The preacher’s kid from Childress.
We were too young to be counselors but they needed one
so we two were the one. It was an interesting week.
I think that’s the week my Bible was baptized (dropped in the creek)
and I know it’s when I took the lead
and what should have been a ten-minute hike took more than an hour. I was lost. Leta Ruth knew exactly how to get to the cross
on the top of the bluff. (You would have thought such a focal-point
even I could have found.) But she was smart, a science major.
And I was in awe. Not many others anywhere near my age…
not really any others I can recall…stood on a higher pedestal than I.
Yet I had no self-esteem.

We’re not on pedestals nor on a ladder. We’re equal. Not duplicates,
but equals. And when we finally learn that, life’s so much better.
We can really see the bright colors and not compete to be the best.