Preface

What I’ve written in this book is a personal memoir of my life that hasn’t always been easy. I wrote it because I want to help and inspire people from all walks of life. I’ve faced a lot of dif cult circumstances and overcome economical, mental, and even emotional hardships, but with selfdiscovery, patience, and determination I have learned a way to understand the world, observe people, and know that how I respond will determine success or failure to whatever comes my way.

I hope you can nd inspiration that you can draw upon for your own personal challenges. Life is a gift lled with ups, downs, positives, negatives, victories, and even tragedies. We all have different paths, but no matter what, everyone goes through life’s obstacles. What I’ve noticed is that people let bad things overcome them. Unaware, they get stuck in a hole, and before they know it, the negative thinking, along with making unhealthy choices, starts a downward spiral in their life that they can’t stop because they get overwhelmed.

In the chapters in this book, I point out key events that have shaped me to be the person I have become. Sometimes my story is a little depressing, but I encourage you to keep reading, since it reveals a draining but rewarding process of how I learned to rethink my place in the world and nd inner peace. Each chapter is a short story that represents eyeopening, life-learned lessons from all sides of my life. I hope my story inspires all who come into contact with it.

My life is a testimony to show you that we can all recover from the darkest places of life. Throughout this story, you will see my trans- formation and change for the better. You will learn how I faced and overcame a lifetime of negative situations. Today, I am a happy per- son. How I got here was a long, unpredictable journey that I will share with you.

I’ll be honest, I had a lot of anger and patterns of negative thinking that took three decades to resolve. At times, life was hard and I made a lot of mistakes. I learned the hard way and sometimes still wonder how I survived. I’m sure you’ve been in similar situations, so to you my message is: No matter what the hardships or circumstances are, you can handle them.

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                                                                                                                           Introduction

Time and time again as a child, I lost everything I loved, knowing that I had done nothing to deserve the pain that life was sending my way. I was born into a family that was raised with pain, who were also willing to put others in pain for the life of hardship they lived in. Being weak in my family did not exist. My family is one that was raised with the worst conditions in life—such as poverty, alcohol, and violence. To see death was a treat to the pain we lived with, so we followed no rules but our own.

I got into a motorcycle crash when I was 7, which knocked me unconscious until I woke up just as I was going into surgery. I also got shot before the age of 9, and my mom died six days after I turned 13.

Obviously, growing up was not easy for me. Having to ght for my own life was something that not too many people survive without losing their mind or dying. Most people who survive a past like mine live with a vengeful heart, so hurting others comes easy to them, and only seeing their own point of view is the life they end up with, since they don’t feel or understand others’ pain.

To be continued in the book.........