Years of Pain and struggle

I originally posted this for a person that wanted answers as to what I meant by years or pain and struggle in a post. It is relevant here. I think he disappeared from this site.

But when people question me on why I think life is simple they seem to think that I am lucky. You tell me how lucky I was. Life really is simple when you realize it was not meant to be a struggle.

We are hear in this world to learn and to have fun. Nothing more.

Below is the post.
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To put some things in perspective I am 41 years old and own multiple businesses. I do what I want, when I want. I travel now more time than I live in the US.

Years of Pain and Struggle... A shortened version.

I was always the outsider when I was in school. I went to 9 different high schools.

I was labeled the "Stupid weird kid".

My parents divorced when I was 8 years old and I was the weapon they used against each other to fight. Joint custody. Lived with my mom 4 days a week, my dad 3 days a week.

Basically neglected by my parents when I was young.

Had more "friends" than I could count, back stab and turn against me.

I have made more stupid mistakes with my life and blowing opportunities that were handed to me.

I have lost everything I owned except the clothes on my back, 5 different times.

I was homeless and living on the streets for over 3 years. Not counting the times I lived in a storage locker.

I have had the world at large look down at me.

I have had the joy of cleaning up my brothers house several days after he stuck a shotgun to his head and blew it off. (It was really fun cleaning his dried up blood that was splattered all over his bedroom.)

I have had trusted friends steal from me and talk shit behind my back.

I lost a fiancee to Bulimia She died in my arms.

My ex wife and the person I trusted most tried to get me arrested for growing marijuana. After 10 years I just new she was my soul mate. She also emailed and called my family and told them about my grow. I lucked out of getting busted, but that is another story. Lost more than half of everything I owned in the divorce.

I have been hassled and wrongly arrested by cops. After the courts figured it out I did not even get a "Sorry, about that man.", from them.

Well I suppose that is a short version of what years of struggle was for me. I have left out numerous other things.

Wow! You are a total stranger and you now know more about my life than most people I know.

 

I am not struggling with life anymore. I also believe that going through these things gave me compassion.

I think I must be better for those experiences.

 

Gosh, that is a real hard question to answer.

Make no mistake I am still haunted by my fiancees death and my brothers suicide. I know there is nothing I can do to make those things change. But they still come to my mind every now and then.

It was through this turmoil that I began a spiritual journey.

When I was younger and in school I dealt with it by rebelling against god and the world. I hated god and other people. This cased me lots of turmoil.

Everything totally collapsed when my fiancee died. Up to that point I was just an angry young man. I was 26 years old at the time. I did not understand what Bulimia was. We were in love and had been living together at that point for a few years. I really can't go into details about everything but when she died I went into what would be called Post traumatic stress.

For about 4 years I was like a zombie. I was filled with guilt and pain. That is when the living on the streets happened. I could not function, I could not work I was just living in a daze. I was convinced god really hated me and wanted to keep me alive just to screw with me.

My brothers death happened about 4 years ago. It hit me hard but it would later save me from taking my own life. I saw what his death did to my family. After that I vowed I would never take my life because I will never do that to my family.

At some point in all of this mess I realized that our life is a gift and it really should be experienced. All of it, the joy and yes the pain. We are hear to experience life. Taking it away is not our right.

I developed a compassion for all people beyond what I new existed. That compassion expressed through me and began to effect other people.

I realized that all my beliefs were just opinions. Some were not my own opinions. I began to look at them and examine them.

Through my experience I learned not to judge people and situations. When I stopped putting labels on people and life I experienced a different level of viewing life.

I know all this blabber probably does not make any sense. But it is impossible to put words to all of this.

Accept all experiences and own them. Feel the joy and the pain. There is a reason for it. We are here to live and life is a gift. Cherish all of it. Good and bad. But the truth is there is no good and bad. It is just an experience.

That is how I survived. How I succeeded was realizing that we are here to learn and to have fun.

 

Some time after seeing the horror of the streets for a few years I came to the conclusion that since god was not going to but me out of my misery. At that point I was beginning to develop an acceptance that I was here and that suffering really was not my thing, I met a lady that worked with the homeless.

She saw something in me. I do not know what but she did. I began to think of other people and decided to help her with what she was doing. I few months later we got a grant and I started working for her.

Then I got a place to live. After about 2 years of working with psychotic at risk youth I realized that was not my thing.

I moved and got another job at a call center. That paid the bills but was draining all my energy. Thus I went through other jobs at offices and in sales.

In sales I realized that the money was good but I was making other people rich. I also hated the long hours. So at one point I realized I needed a business.

It occurred two me there are three kinds of businesses. Products, services or providing information. It seemed to me services would limit my money making opportunities as a service you are limited on how much you can make an hour. Well unless you hire people. Products and information was were it was at.

So I worked the dumb job and on my off time I found products and information and learned how to market them. I found products that I was interested in and passionate about.

Through a series of failures, some tremendous failures, I might add I found the right products and information.

I set up systems that would work and then I would duplicate the system with different products.

Finally I was making more money than I had ever seen. This took over 5 years of trial and error to be an overnight success.

I realize I am oversimplifying all of this but I is hard to condense it into a post.

I am also sorry that I can't go into the details because I am known in my community as a businessman and no one I work with gets stoned. Thus my user name: Unknown American.

 

Well my line of products was Jewelry at first. I cut down my living expenses and used extra cash. I was still working the dumb job.

If you want a good reference on getting wealthy and how I learned to save money for the business read the book "The Richest Man in Babylon". I cant remember who wrote it right now and don't have it handy. Google or Amazon it and you will find it. It is less than $5 at a bookstore or you could buy it used for cheaper.

That describes how I learned to pay myself first and build money to invest into my ventures.

My first order was for about $150 to buy Lapis from India. Lapis is a gemstone.

Again I am oversimplifying it. If I lost everything tomorrow I would get a regular job and use the principles in that book to save again and build a business.

Don;t quit your present job. just sideline until you start making more than your job. Keep the stability of a job until you can strike out on your own.

 

My whole point of posting this was not to whine about my life. I like my life now. But the fact remains some of you people that are about 30 years old plus or minus, might have at one time seen a scruffy stoner dude wandering the streets of Arizona or New Mexico. You know the one outside of the coffee shop who is giving Tarot readings for donations or selling hippie jewelry.

That person that the world at large thinks is hopeless could transform into someone that has great potential.

I am also talking to people who have given up hope and look around and hate the world. They see this man in his early forties siting in a fine restaurant and wearing an expensive suit and hate him. That is me too. I am still a stoner and the same being you saw on the streets.

It is easy to get overwhelmed at life. It is easy to get discouraged. It is easy to judge people outside of yourself. But that person you judge is already defined and you have just defined yourself.

 

Thanks for your suggestion. I will write a book about it at one point. I have been asked to do that by many people.

I am not quite ready to do that just yet. Even writing this post brought up all kinds of things inside of me.

Even though I am at a great place in my life now it is hard to look back and describe all of the things I experienced and put them into words. It is like living it again.

But sometime in this next year I am going to start the process.

I thank everyone that read my story and commented on it.

It is my hope that this story will find others that are in a bad place in life and realize they can survive and rise above where they find themselves now.