Editor’s Note: This week’s post is a reminder from a friend that ideas found in Twelve Step recovery are applicable to most humans. Enjoy this reminder that we have choices and looking at our patterns of choices can help us change.

I’ve spent a lot of my time looking in all the wrong places for what I needed.

I’ve looked for caring and compassion from those who were either too focused on their own needs to notice anyone else’s or had so little capacity to care for and love themselves that there was nothing to give other people.

I’ve looked for love from people who guarded their hearts with security systems worthy of the Mona Lisa.

I’ve looked for appreciation and recognition from folks who were never, ever going to be generous with either. In fact, they were sometimes punishingly stingy just to prove they had the upper hand.

I’ve looked for support from sources who’d already shown, time and time again, that they were unable, unprepared, or unwilling to give it.

In other words: I’ve gone to the hardware store looking for milk. That’s not what hardware stores are for, and if you do happen to stumble upon a random quart of milk, you shouldn’t buy it. More likely than not, it’s way past the expiration date, and it may not even be real milk.

A very clever friend shared this metaphor for what we’re doing when we search for something where we won’t find it. It’s especially apt when we’ve repeatedly experienced the disappointment that ensues when that does not work out for us. Her “Hardware Store Rule” should be right up there with the Pythagorean theorem, or Newton’s laws of motion. It is immutable. No matter how many times we go to the hardware store, or how many different hardware stores we visit, or what fancy names they give themselves, we will always find that they have no milk. So why do we keep looking for it on their shelves?

I ask myself this each time I return to the hardware store and leave empty handed, or when I end up spinning my wheels—repeating actions that in the past haven’t gotten me any closer to where I’m trying to go. 

I think I go back again and again to those behaviors, like when I am looking for honest feedback from someone who routinely provides only “toxic positivity,” not due to temporary amnesia, but because I am hopeful that something will have changed. This time, I say to myself, I will find exactly what I’m seeking. Things will be different. There is a reason for the saying “Hope springs eternal.” It does. 

Blind hope is rooted in denial and keeps us going back to the hardware store and searching every aisle. But hope that’s grounded in reality is different. This is healthy hope that helps us to see all the options, including those that are much better. Of course, there’s the chance that trying something new will not pan out, but we can grow resilient enough to deal with disappointment and move on—or maybe even look within ourselves for what we think we can find only from an external source. Without hope, after all, we can’t change, and if we can’t change, we can’t grow. 

These days, I am becoming less likely to look for what I need in the wrong place. But when I do,  I am actually kind of grateful. It gives me an opportunity to practice self-compassion, and it reminds me that I need to be aware and not default to a pattern that is familiar, but not fulfilling. I don’t want my awareness to become hypervigilance—and I certainly don’t want to punish myself when I slip up. However, being smacked in the head every now and then by reality is useful. It reminds me of my progress because I can notice habits that I would not have seen in the past. 

With practice and dedication, I’m discovering that many different options are available to me, and I am capable of making better choices.  And more often now, with my friend’s wise words to guide me, I am finally learning to walk past the hardware store–unless I am looking for hardware!