Duration or Donation?

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“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.” That line, credited to Corrie ten Boom, opened today’s Your Daily Reprieve, and I couldn’t shake it.

Most of us in recovery spend a lot of time counting. Days, months, years. Chips and coins and cakes. Counting is good! Each of those days is a gift, and we should celebrate every one of them. But today’s readings ask a bigger question. It isn’t just how long we stay sober. It’s what we do with the days we get.

Duration or donation? We get to pick the second one, every morning.

Today’s assignment: pick up the phone

The A.A. Thought for the Day in Twenty-Four Hours a Day doesn’t waste any words: “What am I going to do today for A.A.? Is there someone I should call up on the telephone or someone I should go to see? Is there a letter (email) I should write and send?”

Then it gets personal: “Tomorrow may be too late. How do I know there will be a tomorrow for me? How about getting out of my easy chair and getting going?”e that. Out of the easy chair! Service isn’t something we get around to once things settle down. It’s how things settle down.

In Recovery Thinking, 90-Days to Change Your Life! I put it this way: “Service is the price, a small price for the return! Life is good!!!” The price is small. The return is huge. A ten-minute phone call can make someone’s whole day, and it usually makes ours too.

Giving is where the happiness is

Today’s Your Daily Reprieve also shares this from Og Mandino: “Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”

A perfume you can’t pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. That’s the secret of the Twelfth Step, right there. When we carry the message, we get to hear it again. When we help a newcomer through a rough night, we remember our own and thank God we’re not there anymore.

The Thought for Today in Daily Ponderables adds a line from Stevie Ray Vaughan: “You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other.” Simple. True. We are here for just a flicker! Why not spend that flicker lifting somebody up?

Notice the need first

Service starts with paying attention. Matthew Kelly, in today’s Dynamic Catholic reflection from Feminine Genius, describes awareness as “the ability to notice what others often miss. It sees the unspoken need, the subtle shift in energy, the hidden sorrow, the hope of an emerging possibility.”

That’s a great description of a good sponsor, a good friend, and a good home group member. Somebody who’s quiet at the back of the meeting. Somebody who stopped returning texts. Somebody who just got a little time and is scared to death they’ll lose it. You don’t need a title to notice them. You just need to look up.

Today’s Meditation for the Day in Twenty-Four Hours a Day says the same thing in a spiritual way: “Today look upward toward God, not downward toward yourself.” When we get our eyes off ourselves, we start seeing the people God puts in front of us.

The Bible says it plainly too: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV). Your story is a gift. Your time is a gift. Your experience, strength, and hope are a gift. Use them!

Serve without running the show

One word of balance from Al-Anon’s Courage to Change: “If I take on service responsibilities in my group, it does not mean that I now run the show.” Service isn’t about being the boss or the hero. It’s about showing up, doing the work, and letting a Higher Power handle the results.

That takes the pressure off. We don’t have to fix anybody. We just have to be useful.

Five ways to donate your day

  1. Make one call before noon. Think of someone you haven’t heard from in a while. Call them. No agenda, just “How are you doing?”
  2. Write one note. A text, a card, or an old-fashioned letter. Tell someone what they’ve meant to your recovery.
  3. Show up early or stay late. Set up chairs, make the coffee, clean up after. Those jobs keep a meeting alive.
  4. Watch for the quiet one. At your next meeting, find the person standing alone and say hello. Give them your number.
  5. Give one thing with no strings. A ride, a meal, an hour of listening. Don’t keep score. Just give.

The measure of today

Nobody gets to choose how many days they’ll have. That part belongs to God. But every single one of us gets to choose what we donate today. A call, a smile, a ride, a hug. Small stuff, big return.

So count your days with gratitude, and then go give some of them away! Life is GOOOOOOOD!!!

What’s one thing you can donate to someone else today?

Go, Go, Go… Dan 🙂

Books quoted in this post:

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Reflection note: I wrote this from my own daily readings. Quotes belong to their original authors and sources (Your Daily Reprieve, quoting Corrie ten Boom and Og Mandino; Daily Ponderables Thought for Today, quoting Stevie Ray Vaughan; Twenty-Four Hours a Day / Hazelden Foundation; Courage to Change / Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.; Matthew Kelly, Feminine Genius, via the Dynamic Catholic Daily Reflection; the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV); Recovery Thinking, 90-Days to Change Your Life!). I used AI to help organize it and reviewed it before posting. Image created with AI assistance.