There’s A Hole in My Sidewalk” “Pay Forward” # 117

I greet The Indwelling Poet.

Today’s “Pay Forward” gift is - I want to share this poem that has touched the heart of so many in recovery.   “There’s A Hole in My Sidewalk.”  A poem that has been reprinted and quoted countless times since its original publication in 1977, “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” by Portia Nelson has become a classic:

Chapter 1: I walk down the street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I fall in.  I am lost … I am hopeless.  It isn’t my fault.  It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2: I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I pretend I don’t see it.  I fall in again.  I can’t believe I am in this same place.  But it isn’t my fault.  It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3: I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.   I see it there.  I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.  I know where I am.  It is my fault.  I get out immediately.

Chapter 4: I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I walk around it.

Chapter 5: I walk down another street.

“There’s A Hole in My Sidewalk,” from which this poem came, is a mainstay of recovery groups.  Thy Love, Thy Will be done.

Day
117