Coming Soon: Stupid Stories from My Youth

We’re working our way into the new year. My Super Habits series is down to single digits. And foolishly, I’ve slightly tweaked the focus of my blog to include all of life. All of life! What was I thinking?

So maybe I bit off more than I can chew, but I’ll posting in the Life category a little more often this year. That’s right. I’m going to start sharing some stupid life stories.

My Misspent Youth Taught Me Valuable Lessons

First of all, if you’re new around here, let me tell you a secret about my past: I was a child victim of an extreme religious cult. I was beaten, abused, and forced to do extensive hours of child labor. I was indoctrinated with bullshit. But at age 16, the State of Washington removed me. You can read about my cult experiences in my book, A Train Called Forgiveness.

After I got out of the cult, I went flippin’ crazy. I had more freedom than I’d ever known. I started doing some stupid stuff. I drank beer (and whiskey, and…), smoked pot, did a variety of other drugs, hitchhiked, shoplifted, and drove too fast (without a license), among many other things.

Then in my 20s, I traveled the country by train several times, moved to Nashville and back, twice, smoked more pot, had a few sexual flings, and drank too much beer, (and whiskey, and…).

If you read many blogs, you might notice something. Hardly anybody writes about their misspent youth. Based on what I read, I might conclude that most the bloggers on the Internet, not only didn’t have any fun when they were young, but they never had any youth at all. They were born serious, self-assured, and full of perfect advice for us peons. But there are lessons to be learned from our stupid stories.

If We Don’t Admit We’re Stupid, We’ll Never Smarten Up

The stupidity didn’t stop magically when I turned 30 and went back to college. I continued to make some dumb-ass mistakes. Even though I’d grown up a bit and quit drinking and smoking, life still dished out its lessons.

So I’ll include some of the mistakes I’ve made as an adult, too. I married a narcissist. I moved to Kansas for crying out loud. Okay, Kansas wasn’t that bad, but you get my drift. All the stupid shit I’ve done has made me who I am today.

The point of these stories isn’t to dwell on my past, cry in my beer (I started drinking again), or whine about regrets. The point is to see what kinds of lessons we can learn from stupidity. And believe me, there are a lot of lessons that can be learned from stupidity. That, and it’ll give me a chance to practice some writing in a narrative style.

I’ll still be posting about creativity, simplicity, and all that other jazz, but I want to spice things up a bit.

So get ready for stupid stories from my youth.

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