A CHANGED OUTLOOK

When I was drinking, my attitude was totally selfish, totally
self-centered; my pleasure and my comfort came first. Now that I am
sober, self-seeking has started to slip away. My whole attitude toward
life and other people is changing.

Freedom from Self-Seeking

Please free my thinking of self-will, self-seeking, dishonesty, and wrong motives.
  —paraphrased from Alcoholics Anonymous

There is a difference between owning our power to take care of ourselves, as part of God's will for our life, and self-will. There is a difference between self-care and self-seeking. And our behaviors are not as much subject to criticism as are the motives underlying them.

There is a harmonic, gentle, timely feeling to owning our power, to self-care, and to acts with healthy motives that are not present in self-will and self-seeking.