My kids pointed out yesterday that 47 years ago I turned 10.

I pointed out that 40 years ago, I turned 17 while working on a yearling farm in Pennsylvania.

But who’s counting?

There is not doubt I am a lucky — fortunate — man.

I beat myself up too much about my failings, perceived in particular. Has that helped me get further? Maybe. Is it helping me now? I don’t know.

I have a lot of doubt about what I’m doing. And whether I can do it. The doubt helps me reflect on what’s happening and gives me a little humility, but is it the right kind of humility?

Last night was all about the 6th step. Being entirely ready to have all the defects removed.

Being ready. What does that mean, exactly? It is easy to say, but hard to enact. In fact, there’s nothing to enact. It’s a state of readiness. This morning that seems nothing more than an awareness of something. An understanding of what these things — defects — are.

Allowing the possibility that they can “be removed” like scales from the eye or chains wrapped around the spirit. (I’d prefer the term “lifted” for its sense of another source of power, but that is not exactly right either.)