Hello everyone. I figured I would briefly introduce myself just to kind of test the waters out. It never ceases to amaze me at how I can continue to find new and amazing platforms like this within the cryptocurrency community. I mention that because I am just a bit "giddy" right now. Things like this are exactly what I have been looking for. So, you may have to overlook some of what I say due to being high-on-hype.
The best way to explain myself is as a complete screw up/failure. Literally every single cliché or mistake related to that terminology has somehow found itself checked on my list. I know that for younger folks it is nothing like it used to be, and that may make some of these things hard to understand. Things like my parents divorcing. I ended up in the "bible belt" and was one of very few kids at school who came from a split family. Nothing major there but it still adds to the checklist.
My mother was a single mother for a few years. Despite working multiple jobs we were still inhabitants of government issued housing projects. We moved out of this into a house on "the bad side of town" and to complete the stereotype of living in Kentucky, we moved into a trailer park. Are you checking things off the list? Good. Keep your pen handy. It gets better.
My mother got married a second time. It worked I guess because they are still together and it is looking like the "til death do you part" portion of the wedding vows is actually going to be accurate. This sounds happy right? Well, I honestly cannot complain about it. As ghetto and chaotic as it was, I definitely would not trade it for anything. However, there was some nightmare fuel along the way. For example, my stepfather suffers from various mental illnesses. Therefore, I got the opportunity to add domestic and child abuse to the checklist. Now you may hear child abuse and think one thing, but I think we may have extended into a level beyond that. I'm talking having a knife to your throat, gun to your head in a police stand off kind of thing. For real, all of those things happened.
Luckily things settled down when drug addiction introduced itself into our household. Sometimes... I watched my parents sell off everything and get so desperate that I am pretty sure they burnt every single thing I owned, the night before Thanksgiving, and didn't even buy me a pair of socks with the Red Cross vouchers... As the opioid pandemic ravaged our boring little city, due to a lack of anything else to do, I've watched friends and family fall at super young ages. Oh, and I also I ended up hopping on that train myself.
Unlike my cohorts I had "talent" to some extent and had been doing music for several years. Thanks to my "fame" I was able to score some free trips to California on a couple of occasions. Both times I ended up just increasing my addiction thanks to the cheap drugs over on the west side. Naturally, this lead to depression and suicidal thoughts. I managed to survive it despite graduating from drug addict to full blown junkie. I know it is something most people won't recognize, but as a drug addict I used to take pride in not being a junkie. What is the difference? Well, a drug addict just gets high. A junkie (to me) had to possess two distinct characteristics. First, they use needles and do "hardcore" stuff like heroin. Second, they will lie/steal/kill for a fix. I didn't get quite to the point of no return level. In fact, I just magically turned things around.
I switched my addiction back to one that I utilized to escape my reality back in my teenage years. Video games. It started with Injustice: Gods Among Us on iOS and evolved to GTAV on PS4. I literally spent over a year of real time just within the game itself. This lead to my sobriety because I did all of the "right" stuff in life as a method of getting people to leave me alone when I did have time to game with my gang. I swapped to DC Universe Online at some point and put some years into that. The end result wasn't just getting clean but also getting promoted. I had started wearing a suit to work everyday, just because I felt it was like a "disguise" from the people who would screw with me. See, I covered myself in tattoos when I was 18. It doesn't mean anything these days, but at this time that was a death sentence in this bible belt little ghost town that literally just legalized alcohol in 2021... It was just an experience I wanted to avoid. Plus, I liked feeling like a boss.
Despite turning things around there were still plenty of problems. I am going to skip over those since they are old news now and this is way longer than expected. Pretty much I figured out "The Secret" that had been right in my face during my entire adult life. This is where things turned around entirely and got me to right here. I am going to cover it in a different post. Not because I am trying to build anticipation in order to sell you something, but more so because it is 3:20am and I am super tired.
I hope you will check out the ending/beginning as soon as I get the chance to type it up. In regards to the title, a big part of what changed everything revolves around gratitude. It is like the fuel for my "dream factory". So, I try to generate that goodness and positivity any opportunity I can get. I wanted to thank you to the developers of this platform. I think it is AWESOME. Thank you to whoever referred me and whatever website I was on when I stumbled upon this place. And thank you to anyone who actually took the time to read this. You are awesome as well.
Take care everyone!