I don't hate the world anymore

I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread.. I've been feeling very down lately, and not having a lot of confidence in my future.
This gave me some inspiration to keep trying. Thank you

 

You are welcome. That means a lot to me.

Keep trying!

 

If you don't mind me asking, Mr. Unknown American: How did you go from living on the streets to becoming a wealthy business man?

 

I am writing it now....it will be up shortly

 

Wow,that is a real long story. As in book long.

My ending up in the streets was a result of post traumatic stress when I lost my fiancee to Bulimia. I could not handle my guilt and blamed her death on me.

It is really hard to talk about all that went on. Anyway at some point about the fourth year one of my street friends asked me what the hell I was doing on the streets.

I suppose it was the fact that I did not drink alcohol and I refused to steal from others or beg for money. He knew I did not belong there.

I had not talked to anyone about what happened. Not even my family. So I let everything out.. How it was my fault my fiancee died.

He listened to me and hugged me and said it was not my fault. Then he told me of a social worker that helped get people off the streets.

I went to her and told her about what happened. She listened to me and then brought me to a house that helped people get off the streets.

After a week she took me to another place becase I was not an alcoholic and the place said I needed to be in a more positive environment.

After a few weeks I was working there. I worked there for about a year and then got a job in a call center doing customer service. I saved every penny and got me a studio apartment close to my work.

When I was not working I was at the library reading. By some fluke one day I saw this book on the table.

The name of the book was "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J. Schwartz. I devoured that book.

Then I started reading biographies of the big business moguls of history. Andrew Carnegie and others.

I saw that most self made wealth comes from your own business. But I had to figure out what I wanted to do and could do.

I looked back at my past and when I was I kid I always had an interest in Rock hounding, rock collecting and the art of Lapidary (cutting and polishing semi precious stones).

I figured since I was familiar with this it might be a good first step.

Clearly I did not have the money to open a Lapidary shop, so I would find a product to sell to those type of places.

A wholesale supplier of gemstones would not even talk to me unless I ordered $500 worth of stuff. I did more research and realized most gemstones do not come from the USA but overseas from places like India and Brazil.

So I started studying importing things into the USA.

After my experience with the wholesaler I knew I could not send someone a handwritten letter. So I went to a print shop and made a deal with a printer. They would give me letterheads and envelopes and I would pay for it buy collating books and newsletters for the print shop.

I used my home address and called the company,"The Intuitive Gem Company". That was an inside joke to myself.

I used the letterheads and envelopes and through the library I got the address of the Embassy in India. I paid a girl to type the letter.

I told them I was a wholesaler and importer of gemstones and jewelry and asked them to send me information about companies in India.

Got it back then I composed a form letter to contact the companies.

To shorten it down my first order was for $25, it was for a Gemstone called Lapis lazuli, a beautiful blue stone. I explained it was a sample order to see if it met my company quality standards.

I got the package about 6 weeks later and walked over to one of those funky new age shops. I sold them all of it and made about $110.

I reinvested all that a made another order. I kept doing that for about a year. After that my orders started getting larger.

After another year I quit my job and spent a few years traveling the USA doing Gem and Jewelry Shows. I did that for about 2 years.

I changed the company name at that time becase although my inside joke was funny to me I needed to convey professionalism.

Then I started importing electronic components. 2 years latter a big electronic company bought me out for an insane amount of money.

That is the very shortened version with numerous things left out becase I would have to write a book about it to cover everything.

Please note: The other business that some of you know about came right after that. Then later I got into plants, tropical seeds and other businesses.

 

You're an enterprising individual, UA. I've gone down a more conventional road, but with some of the aspects you describe.

.

 

Thank you.

It has been said our experiences make us who we are.

Seems that writing and thinking about this gave me horrible nightmares all last night.

To be honest, I think I would have preferred a more conventional road.

 

Very touching . Happy to see you have decided to let a little bit about you out to everyone.

 

I would like to point out that the difference between before and after is in how we parse our relationship to things, i.e., I felt responsible for her death as opposed to it is not your fault. As simple as this point may seem it is no less true:

Anxiety is caused by the misapprehension of what is so. There is something in your narrative of experience that is not true.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about. The experience was real. You can choose to believe it or not.

 

Without having reached that bottom would you had the same motivation to get where you now are? Nothing like not having something that is generally taken for granted (shelter, food, etc.) to actually appreciate it. Of course there has to be a persistent "want" to begin with.

My guess is that there was little chance of you actually helping your fiancee apart from periodic interventions... the problem would likely have persisted and placed an increasing stress on the relationship had it progressed. All this energy that you put into picking yourself up and gaining the enviable level of independence would arguably have been spent dealing with the continual drama of her ongoing bulimia and self image issues that created it. It's quite possible-- probable even that by helping her past crisis after crisis your own spirit would have been consumed and your drive erased.

Then again, not knowing you all that well it's a gigantic step to assume that you'd have subjected yourself to the personal stress. As guilty as you may have felt in not preventing what happened, staying in an ongoing dysfunction such as that would have multiplied that guilt.... you wouldn't be past it today.

You got to refocus... on an attainable goal. As cruel as it was it was for the better.

 

I did not suggest that your experience was not real. I said we suffer from failing to see the truth of a situation. You described your downward spiral as being initiated by the idea that you were at fault for her death. You further describe your resurgence began when someone told you you were not at fault, which is the truth of the situation. It was not your fault. I am saying that the cause of anxiety is the misinterpretation of realty.

 

When this happened Bulimia was not really openly talked about. So when it happened I did not understand what was going on.

All I knew was she was alive but strangely weak when we went to bed and then she was dead in the morning.

She actually died of something rupturing in her throat. I leaned later that was caused as a result of her Bulimia. Apparently this is the way a lot of people die who have Bulimia.

I now know it was not my fault but something inside of me thinks I should have noticed what was going on and got her help. But I did not know what Bulimia was.

I suppose hind sight is 20/20.

I really do not obsess over it much anymore. I have gone on with my life. Yes, every now and then I have nightmares about it, as well as some rather traumatic experiences I had on the streets.

I felt it was important to mention this as it kind of gives people an idea of what drove me to the streets. I really went out in the streets to die. That was my goal.

I did not write this to get sympathy. I wrote this to tell people in pain they can go on and make life better.

But your post is correct and I do appreciate it.

Seems my demons from the past are still inside. I wounder if they will ever go away.

 

You are so damn smart I have a hard time following you. Thanks for clarifying.

I understand now.

 

Experience suggests to me that demons never completely go away... we just forge an uneasy truce with them.

I didn't take it as looking for sympathy as nothing about what you contribute here suggests that you particularly want it. All sympathy does is enable people to continue wallowing in self pity and avoid gaining from the experience. Perhaps you were weighing how to word your story as not to go the sympathy route- if so you were successful.

People too comfortable in their lot in life have a way of stagnating.

 

That is true as long as you believe in demons. If there are no demons then there is no reason to defend yourself.

 

I refer to my personal shortcomings as demons.... it's metaphorical.

 

Can you really defend yourself from yourself (personal demons)? Or do we just become comfortable enough with them to move on in life?

 

What personal shortcomings would those be? Are you something less than human?
Just as there are no demons there are no heroes. There are no superlatives in reality. One space is just as real as any other space. There is only essential being.