Happy 87th Birthday Mom!
What I am learning by teaching is that there are no experts. Whatever "progress" I appear to make is between me and me. Thank God there's no other judge.
All I am looking for here is the appearance of progress. (I say appearance because progress itself is an illusion. How can anything Perfect (That's how God made me. So....) make progress? To what? To where? So all I am looking for here is the appearance of progress (real, illusory, progress). ... and that brings relief... blessed relief ... and I am reset to the North Star.
Think of this, a billion stars facing the North Star. Maybe a billion stars who really want to go home and they all used to live with the North Star....so they first have to face the North Star and then slowly, over eons, travel home.
The closer you are, little Giant star, to the North Star, the more important your alignment is, right? If you're way off, just turning a little can get you heading toward the big One. Relief. If you're really close, you need to pay more attention, cause just a degree or two off course and you'll miss it. (Assuming you can't always shift gears in time to adjust course.) This would be true whether you consider yourself a race car or a tanker.
Okay then.