I Don’t Believe God Wrote the Bible was written is to inspire people to follow their dreams and not be bullied into a life they may regret forever. I am not the only teenager who didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my future when the time came for me to definitively choose who to be for the rest of my life.
At fifteen, society and family were already demanding I know. It caused me such angst and created such conflict within the family because Gerald couldn’t make up his mind that I decided to literally flee society in order to get some peace and quiet and time to think on my own.
It was the best decision I have ever made, once I’d set forth into the big unknown, I realized the minuteness of the place I’d been living in my whole life and the restrictiveness of the ideals, which I’d been surrounded and indoctrinated with while growing up. Just the simple experience of hearing another point of view widened my vision of the world. And gave me hope.
I started off living with the hippies and punks in the streets learning about spirituality and alternative lifestyles to one they tell us to lead.
Admittedly, I got myself in a pickle with drugs, but that was only because I was recovering from an abusive childhood and keeping the intrusive memories at bay proved difficult.
Eventually, after yet another near fatal drug overdose I decided enough was enough and I resolved to go even further afield in my quest for a life I believed was out there, but I hadn’t yet found. A girlfriend and I went to France and this is where the book begins.
In only a few weeks of being there, hitching around free as a bird and far from the memories of my childhood my mind-set completely changed. I went from having too many years in my life with absolutely no way of filling them, to realizing there could never be enough years in a lifetime to do all the things I wanted to do. Not to mention, all the things I knew I hadn’t yet discovered but knew I would want to do as well.
It was this journey, which saved my life and has meant that today at the age of forty-eight, I look back on my life with pride and satisfaction for following my heart, and not with regret for unfulfilled dreams. What is more, I still have more projects and wishes than I will never be able to achieve in this lifetime and I believe this is a healthy and productive way to live, which benefits not only me but others around me.
In short, young people should be given the time to find out who they are, and not pressured into a life that could potentially prevent them from achieving their full potential and stunt their contribution to the world. This is happening all too often and it is the human race that is losing out. Happiness and contentment breed positivity and creativity, settling for anything less is detrimental to society as a whole. Go on, go out and Get A Life!
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