Step 3 (Continued)
 
C: He talked about the basic instincts of life. Now, all animals on the face of the earth, have the same basic instincts, the desire for a social instinct, the desire for security, and the desire for sex. But the big difference is: the other animals, they don't have any choice. God directs them. They respond, and do whatever it is that they do at God's will and God's direction only. He gave us the same basic instincts so we could survive. But He gave us the privilege, or the curse, of being able to make decisions. To think about thee. things, and decide what we want to do.
In the Twelve and Twelve, in talking about the three basic instincts, the first one he talked about was the social instinct. He said that every human being is born with the
desire to be liked and accepted and respected by other people. Without that desire to be liked and accepted and respected by other people, the world would go into complete anarchy, dog eat dog situation. Eventually the human race would fail to survive.
Sometimes we hear it called the group instinct, sometimes the herd instinct, sometimes
the social instinct. Doesn't make any difference what we call it, but everybody wants to be liked. Everybody wants to be accepted, and everybody wants to be respected.
Without that, we would not join together to do the things a not necessary for survival of the human race. There's all kind of words that fall under it. Companionship is one.
Prestige is one. Some people want to be the leader. Some people just want to be a part of the group. Without leaders, without decision makers the human race wouldn't survive
at all. Even back in the cave man days, somebody had to be the decision maker. Somebody had to say, Mary, you get over behind that tree with a club. And Jack, you get over behind this bush here with a spear. And John, you and Billy, you get over there behind that tree with those big rocks. And then the rest of us are going to run this sucker through here, and we're all going to jump him and we're going to kill him and then we're going to have something to eat.
This social instinct will either evidence itself as wanting to be the leader of the group, or wanting to just be a part of the group. In either case though, it will be based upon what other people think of us. If they don't like us and respect us, most certainly we can't be the leader. If they don't like us and accept us, most certainly we cannot be a member of the group, and we will be on the outside.
Everybody is born with that desire to be accepted and liked by other people. We've got self-esteem. Self-esteem is what we think of ourselves, and that's based on what we
think other people think of us. We have personal relationships between each other. We have ambitions in that particular area, to be recognized to be
accepted, et cetera. These are all good, became they are God given things.
Now if we practiced them at the exact level that God intended, then shore would be no conflict between us. But if we practice them on self-will, instead of God's will, it seems as though we're always in trouble. I doubt if you and I would do the things necessary to be liked and accepted and respected by other people if we didn't get a reward for doing
that. You know, you've got to work at being liked and accepted and respected.
You've got to find out what it is that the people in my part of the world really expect of me. You have to sat goals, and you've got to work toward that goal. You work, and you work, and you strive, and you strive. It may be a college education. It may be a lot of different things. It'll vary in different parts of the world. And just as importantly, not only do you have to work toward that, you probably have to give up some things that you really like to do.
If you do certain things, they most certainly are not going to accept you as a part of the group. You've got to give up some of those things. I don't think we would do all
that if we didn't get a reward. The reward is, and Bill mentioned it in his story when he said, 'I had arrived. '( p. 3, par. 2) You've set your goal. You've worked at it, and you've striven. All of a sudden you're there and you've reached it. My God, it does feel good when you've successfully completed that, whatever it is.
The only thing wrong with it; it seems to be just a temporary feeling. You get it, and you look around. You say, is this all there is to it? You set another goal, and you take off again. You strive, and you strive until you reach that goal, and it's not enough. It seems to create an insatiable desire for more of the same. We're not getting there feet enough, and we're not getting the recognition that we went. People are not letting us have -- and we begin to lie a little bit. we begin to cheat a little bit. We begin to steal and con and manipulate people.
When we do, we begin to hurt people. They retaliate against us, and that creates suffering and pain for us. It's plain that a life run on self-will can hardly ever be a success, because under those conditions, we're always in collision with people, places and things. We simply cannot control those desires left on our own self-will.
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