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At my gym, the manager recently put up signs encouraging people to wipe down equipment after use. And for a year or so, I did. I’d say half the gym sprayed down and wiped off equipment and half didn’t.

I found myself wrestling with a bunch of issues. First of all, if half the gym wipes stuff down and half doesn’t, what is the point? The policy doesn’t seem to be working. Secondly, I don’t really sweat when I am there, so what am I wiping away? Just any molecules I leave behind? If that’s the case, shouldn’t I be scrubbing down the door handles, the bench I sit on, the bathroom sink, everything?

Thirdly, I don’t love squirting chemicals all over paper towels that leak that fluid onto my hands. I go to the gym every day, so if that happens five times every day, that seems like a lot of cleaning fluids on a person’s hands. That’s not great.

Last but certainly not least, I hated seeing the trash cans overflowing with paper towels all day. On a regular basis, I or someone else would have to put a foot in the trash cans and squish the mound of paper towels down. I just felt like it was so wasteful.

What ended up happening for me is that I had two strong principles colliding: the wastefulness of the piles of paper towels, and the desire to try to follow rules. I’m not someone who likes to color within any lines told to him, so recovery has been quite an adventure in learning to respect all rules placed in front of me, rather than ignoring the ones that I think are dumb or for other people, not me.

I’m writing about gym paper towel usage because it got me thinking about how often principles are at odds with each other. My silly paper towel scenario, for one. But I also thought of how most of us have ambition in the workplace, and yet also try to exhibit humility as much as possible. So what happens when you go for a promotion and have to hype yourself up? It’s not like you can interview for a job and say, “I’m just a bozo on the bus, so it’s fine if I don’t get it. Give it to whoever you want.” No way. Shoot your shot. Try to get the job and be humble after you get it.

This happens to lots of us in recovery when we see good friends sliding toward a relapse. On one hand, I always feel the pull to let somebody know I think they are slipping away from recovery. On the other hand, I’m a strong believer that people change when they want to change, not when someone else thinks they should. I have yet to grab somebody and shake them and see it have much of an impact.

In that scenario, I always fall back on a few tools. One is to pray—just put it out there into the universe and see what comes back. Another is to ask a fellow sober person about what they would do. The key is, I am not the person floating an idea, evaluating that idea and then executing that idea. That process is too streamlined! I need to welcome in help.

I guess my main takeaway of what to do when principles collide is to treat it like a math equation. What is the principle that matters the most to you? And once you determine that, be sure that by choosing that principle, you acknowledge that this is a one-time special exemption.

In the case of the gym paper towels, I have decided that I will not be spraying down the equipment that I use unless I feel like I am sweaty or gross. I just value the wastefulness a little more than the rule following in this situation. But I am also making sure that this is not the beginning of a new era of me deciding which rules matter and which don’t. They all matter and should be followed except in special circumstances… like when my bicep curls and dumbbell press are killing lots of trees every year!

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

HEARD AT MEETINGS: “As a kid, they called me ‘Half Pint.’ As an adult, they called me ‘Full Quart.’”

(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2002, Richard L. from New Westminster, British Columbia)

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