How to Prune Character Defects

When I sat down to write this week’s post, nothing came to mind. For me, that is a little shocking. I generally have a list of ideas that I want to write and start a few before choosing one to finish. I floundered all weekend trying to find an idea to write about. Finally, on Monday, I did the one thing I can hardly ever bring myself to do, I asked for help. Being too prideful or perhaps embarrassed, I fight a problem for waaayyy too long before I ask for help. It is one of my many, and I mean many, character defects that need daily attention. It is like pruning shrubs around my house. If I neglect my character defects, they can quickly get out of hand and cause all kinds of problems.

For the last several weeks, I have been focused fully on changing a few things I can at home. Namely, the state of my yard. For those of you who don’t know, Nina and I have been renovating part of our home over the last several weeks. When I say we have been renovating our home, I mean that there is an entire crew of people repairing and adding new features to about a quarter of our house.

Willing to Work

Nina wrote about that in her article, “Making a Mess is Making Progress.” Like a little kid watching a construction show, I wanted to be a part of the action. I have absolutely no skills that come anywhere close to those of the guys who are doing the work, so helping was out of the question. I did the next best thing, and decided to clean up the yard I’ve neglected for eight years.

My loving wife kindly suggested that the right tool to fix our yard is a bulldozer. She is not completely wrong. With her help, I have cut down unwanted trees and shrubs that literally cover the yard. We also dug up root systems that left a holes in the ground big enough for a bear to hibernate. I have also begun a battle of replanting a few “keepers” to better locations in our yard. The end result of all of my weekend warrior hard work? Nada. Nothing. It looks pretty much the same. We may have a few gaps in overgrown shrubs, and a few extra feet of nearly grassless yard to mow. There is also an impressive pile of limbs and small tree trunks in our ditch, but not much else to show.

Perhaps taking a torch to all that is there and starting completely from scratch would be the right thing to do, but it wouldn’t make a very good metaphor for working on character defects, now would it. I mean you can’t actually set your emotions and thoughts on fire, can you.

The Importance of Staying Vigilante.

Since I completed my fifth step in Alcoholics Anonymous, I have been tasked with a mission to slowly remove my defects of character. The problem with my character defects are much like the problem with my yard work. If I don’t stay vigilante, things can get out of hand very quickly. I also have a defect of not staying vigilante so I can be a bit of a handful. The same is true with our yard. It is a really pretty yard, but it is always on the verge of being wilderness. Getting it tamed can be a handful.

About three years ago, Nina and I found ourselves homebound in Covid Lockdown. Like most people we began to find things to keep busy without spending time with too many people. Our solution was to work on the yard. We spent hours and hours weeding, mowing, trimming, pruning and digging up wild growth and began to get parts of the yard into shape. Then, when the lockdowns were lifted, life took over and the yard took a back seat to work and school.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Mother Nature began to reclaim our yard. First, weeds took over our flowerbeds and the shrubs I left behind began to stretch above window height. I kept looking at the advance and would mutter to myself, I have to get going on that this weekend, before it gets out of hand. Then, I would go about completing other tasks that took priority. Often, those tasks included house cleaning, writing for the blog, work at a second job on the weekends or running basic errands. I am absolutely sure there was a nice helping of lazy in there, too. When the temperatures in South Georgia hit the 90s with 80 percent humidity, it’s easy for me to find a good show on Netflix and wait for a cooler day.

The problem is that nature didn’t take a break. Plants didn’t decide to stop growing because there was a thunderstorm or because it got a little hot. The yard slowly turned from reasonably managed to an overgrown jungle “overnight.” Similarly, I can’t take a break from working to improve my character defects and think that everything will stay the same from where I left off.

What? I Have Character Defects?

When I left rehab and started my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous, I heard a lot about character defects. Through all the discussion, I never heard a concrete definition for a character defect. (Pro tip: Getting a sponsor and asking questions solves a lot of confusion in early sobriety.) Several people talked about their character defects. They explained that working the steps removed character defects. I was truly happy for them, but I had no idea what they were talking about.

Finally, during one meeting, an old-timer mentioned his most glaring character defect: anger. He said that he works on that particular defect more than his others, and the job is never done. He smirked and said that just because he had asked his higher power to remove them didn’t mean that it didn’t take work on his part.

“For me, all of my defects are still here,” he said. “They may slide to the back of my head and shrink, but they are still with me. My job is to keep them from growing and coming to the front of my head.”

An Example of a Pruned Defect

He gave an example of buying his grandson a new toy. The child, being a child, smashed it on the floor while playing with it, and broke the toy. The old-timer said he could feel his blood pressure rise and was about to explode in a tirade of how the child should have been more careful with the toy, and would not get another gift from him. Instead, he took a deep breath, and he changed the thought.

“He was upset. I was upset. The best thing I could do right then was to let him know that it was okay and mistakes happen,” the old-timer recalled. “Almost before I could think, that defect shot right in front of my eyes and it took a second to get it back where it belonged on the other side of my head. When I thought about it, I had been frustrated at work, and I was tired. My anger was not about my grandson at all. Still, that’s what I mean. My defects are always with me, and I have to keep working on them.”

Later, as I worked through my steps, and I saw my defects laid bare in ink on a notebook page. One of my defects wanted me to burn the page and forget about the whole deal. Another defect wanted to give up. According to that defect, change was hopeless. Fortunately, I had a sponsor. His thought was simple.

“We can always deny the truth, but that will get you drunk,” he said. “Probably the best idea is to make small, consistent changes. There is no quick fix to this problem.”

Daily Pruning is Best

Much like the old-timer who talked about his anger, I still see my own character defects pop up in front of my eyes and glare at me. Besides being completely unable to ask for help, I often repeat the same strategy to solve a problem that had repeatedly failed me in the past. As I explain to my wife, it is like I literally can’t see any other way despite repeatedly offered alternatives by her and others.

That brings me back to the yard. There are two flower beds th that have been hopelessly overgrown since I moved in. Three years ago, my wife and brother-in-law suggested we dig both completely up, and start over with new plants if we wanted to keep those beds. I wasn’t ready for the change, so using an array of hand tools and several hours, I managed to get the beds looking….slightly less overgrown and weed filled.

This weekend, along with three other jobs I was desperately trying to finish before nightfall, I took time to look at the progress I had made with the two beds. They were worse than the last time I tried to clean them up, but I still am not ready to let go and accept a solution. I have moved closer. I am planning to sacrifice one of the beds, but I will probably move some plants out of it. Just don’t tell Nina. She has to get tired of being right all the time, doesn’t she?

Steps for Pruning a Defect

Just like that, two of my character defects were glaring at me like the fifty small cherry laurels that had overtaken the beds. I wanted to avoid a task I needed to complete, and I refused to accept help with the problem. Unlike the small plants, bulldozing my character defects is not possible. However, I can keep them trimmed down to the ground so that they don’t take over my life again. The first step is recognizing the defect, snip. The second step is asking for help when I see that my solutions aren’t working, snip. Third, I need to take action to reduce the impact the defect has on my life. Snip, snip. The last step is to check daily to see if the defect needs more pruning.

If I take these steps, I can get my character defects under control. It may not be a quick process, but that forest of defects did not grow overnight.