It’s been quite an interesting summer. Some bad things have happened but I wouldn’t at all say that it has been a bad summer. This is a hard blog for me to write, I think mainly because I don’t want it to be taken the wrong way at all. At no means am I doing this for pity or for attention, I just have a lot of thoughts and I don’t know how else to get them out of my head.
This summer didn’t go as I was planning at all. It all changed when I made a choice. On May 29, 2010 I decided that I was done living. This wasn’t the first time that I have come to this decision and it wasn’t close to being the first time I tried to take my life. It was the first time that I almost succeed. All I remember is taking a lot of pills and waking up the next day in ICU with a lot of tubes and wires all over me. I was later filled in on what had happened and I came back to reality. The important part is what happened next, on May 31 I made a choice to attend Acadia of Abilene, a mental hospital. Now at the time I didn’t see it as my choice to go, because it really wasn’t but it was my choice to get something out of it. I spent 32 days at or going to groups at Acadia. Something I got out of the experience was a book that was given to me. It was called The Lost Choice by Andy Andrews.
I have read Andrews books before and I have loved them and I got something out of them, this book and the timing just hit home. I don’t think it all came together until I finished the book tonight, and I’m still gathering all the thoughts. It talks a lot about choices and how what we choose leads to something else. Also the books describes how our choices don’t just affect our lives. When I would think about taking my life, I wasn’t in a good state of mind, because I wasn’t thinking about how it would affect everyone else, all I thought about is how I would be gone and it would be a better place for everyone. Man I was so confused.
“Everybody - every single body - makes a difference! But there is a choice that determines what kinda difference you will make. Most folks don’t see how important they are…how much they matter to all of us. So they never choose to do something special with their lives. And not making a choice that is a choice…a lost one.”
This quote hit me hard and threw me into a cement wall. Something else about me is that the other three books I have read by Andy Andrews I read them each in less than two days, this one took me about 32 days. It was hard, I struggled with this book. I was learning how to cope with my problem and this book was showing me that it was my choice and I couldn’t blame my actions on a disease even if I do suffer from Major Depression Disorder (MDD), yea I had a hard life and I had crap come towards me, but my choice was never taken away. I am the one that made a negative choice and it wasn’t a choice that was making me important. I believe the fact I was going through such a struggle with why I was important in life and why my choices make a difference made this book so much more powerful to me and my life. I have God to thank for that one, he is so very BIG.
It has almost been a full week since I was completely discharged from Acadia. Life is still hard like it always will be, but I am remembering I have choices. I’m am so grateful of having this second chance to live my life and hopefully make better choices. God has saved me and given me a new life and I hope that I can make him happy and proud. I want to make a difference. I encourage everyone to read this book and to look at their life and to wonder what choices are they making for themselves, for family, for friends, for people you don’t even know. God loves all of us and he has given us our freedom to make our own choices what will you do with them today? I challenge everyone including myself to start trying to make a choice everyday starting today that will somehow benefit someone else, and it may benefit you too but think of others first. What choices can we make?
Below is a letter that is in the book written from Alfred Vanderbilt to his boys. This letter sounds like God speaking to me. I may sound cheesy and crazy, but it does. It reminded me of why I am still here. That I am different from everyone else and God has a plan for me and it isn’t the same plan I have for myself, but God’s is much more worth it.
“I made you different from the others. On the planet Earth, there has never been one like you…and there never will be again. Your spirit, your thoughts and feelings, your ability to reason - all exist in no one else. Your eyes are a masterpiece, incomparable, and windows to a soul that is also uniquely yours. A single strand of your hair has been created especially for you. Of the multitudes who have come before you and the multitudes who may follow, not one of them duplicates the formula with which I made you. I made you different from the others. The blood that flows through your veins flows through the heart of one whom I have chosen. The rarities that make you one of a kind, my child, are no mere accident or quirk of fate. I made you different in order that you might make a difference. You have been created with the ability to change the world. Every single choice you make…every single action you take…matters. But remember, the converse is also true. Every choice you do not make…every action you do not take…matters just as much! Your actions cannot be hoarded, saved for later, or used selectively. By your hand, millions of lives will be altered, caught up in a chain of events begun by you this very day. But the opposite is true as well. Millions of lives are also altered, caught up in an entirely different chain of events - if you choose to wait. You possess the power of choice. Free will. You have been given everything you need to act, but the choice is yours alone. And beginning this very moment, you will choose wisely. Now go. And never feel inadequate again. Do not dwell in thoughts of insignificance or wander aimlessly lost, like a sheep.You are powerful. You matter. And you have been found. You are my choices.
Your Father” (page 229-230)
