Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Philosophy
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 97
Copyright: October 29, 2017
Price: $1.95 (eBook)
Have you ever contemplated or even attempted suicide just to escape the emptiness you feel in your life? Well, take heart because there really IS a way for you to find real, permanent fulfillment and joy in your life, and all you have to do is surrender and be rescued!
This is not your typical self-help book.
As author Terry Scerine relates through his own experience, the only true and lasting remedy for hopelessness is not through one's own "try this and try that, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, just smile and be happy" self-effort.
The effects of such efforts are temporal and ineffectual, especially considering that one who feels truly hopeless will rarely have any extra effort to expend beyond having their own basic needs met, and can lead to a deeper desperation.
When someone is desperate, they're not looking for new ideas to try. They just want to be rescued. This book is about surrendering to rescue and accepting the real, permanent joy that is available to all of us.
Excerpt
Trapped In an Empty Life:
The Disillusionment
I had been believing what the world had always been telling me: that I was in control of my own destiny, that I was the captain of my own sailing ship, that my chance for fulfillment in life was within my own control. I had taken it to heart. Yet nothing I tried to do ever worked out well, nothing I pursued ever fulfilled me for very long and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
After all, I was a pretty decent and responsible young guy with at least average looks and personality and an above-average intellect, education, and work ethic. Though I bounced from job to job I was the "work hard, play hard" type that I thought I was supposed to be. I was a quick study; I usually did well at anything I tried to do, and all my employers have appreciated my work.
A bona fide "people pleaser", I needed everyone to think highly of me. I was outgoing and likeable, fairly enjoyable and sought after among friends, and at least appeared to be self-confident. I could be the life of the party if I tried hard enough, and generally was because I did.
After college, as I embarked on my career I was full of hope. I was trying hard to be everything that the world taught me a young man should be: the educated, sharp-dressed, self-assured professional, climbing the corporate ladder, acquiring material things, listening to the right music, going out to bars with buddies, chasing women and partying regularly with the designer drugs and drinks of the day. I had a hot car with a hot stereo, a new house in the foothills with nice furniture and some fun toys. I was the hard-working, devil-may-care, spontaneous, energetic, fun-loving, foot-loose and fancy-free guy living in the fast lane. I made the scene. I was pretty much everything I thought I was supposed to be.
I thought I was doing everything “right”, but regardless of my attitude it seemed that no matter how I tried or which way I went in pursuit of happiness I kept hitting brick walls. After several years, my career had become stagnant and disappointing and I had reached burn-out. My income hadn't reached my expectations and I felt taken for granted. I started hating the sunrise and my alarm clock. All of the material possessions I had paid so dearly for turned out to be basically worthless to me. My marriage that I had held out for didn't make me happy, and at 27 I divorced my beautiful and loving first wife.
And to top it all off, the recreational drugs I had been abusing to cope with my downhill-spiraling life became full-time addictions that were flushing my health and financial status down the toilet as well. None of my pursuits brought me happiness, only disappointment and emptiness. I had hit a brick wall on every road. I remember coming to the realization that even the kicks and highs weren't enough anymore; they were just dead-ends too. I found myself, despite my best efforts, living an empty counterfeit version of what I had always dreamed would be a happy, fulfilled life.
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