Anonymity and self-will
“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 p.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.