"The drive for personal gain... which brought so much pain in the past falls by the wayside if we adhere to the principle of anonymity."
Basic Text pg. 73
The word anonymity itself means namelessness, but there's a larger principle at work in the anonymity of the NA program: the principle of selflessness. When we admit our powerlessness to manage our own lives, we take our first step away from self-will and our first step toward selflessness. The less we try to run our lives on self-will, the more we find the power and direction once so sorely lacking in our lives.
But the principle of selflessness does a lot more than just make us feel better-it helps us live better. Our ideas of how the world should be run begin to lose their importance, and we stop trying to impose our will on everyone and everything around us. And when we abandon our "know-it-all" pretensions and start recognizing the value of other peoples' experience, we start treating them with respect. The interests of others become as important to us as our own; we start to think about what's best for the group, rather than just what's best for us. We start living a life that's bigger than we are, that's more than just us, our name, ourselves - we start living the principle of anonymity.
Just for today: God, please free me from self-will. Help me understand the principle of anonymity; help me to live selflessly.
THanks Jayson I really needed to read this JFT this morning and its the medicine a self centered addict like myself really needs to get pounded into his head. Selflessness is so hard for me and many others hell probably for anyone but for us it means survival.
Survival of the group and the program and it will make the difference between good living and painful living in our own personal lives, I have seen what the opposite of selflessness is doing in my life and it sucks so need to start practicing selflessness a lot more.
I am not to sure about the anonymity thing I know we do this as a group of people its not about single people but us as a group so I guess thats what it has to do with which makes a lot of sense.