I was always well trained to be a young gentleman simply because my parents were ministers and taught me to talk to anyone rich or poor, especially between the ages of 6 and 12 when they were in charge of a church in Los Angeles. So, after church often I had to talk to people after they gave a service for church whether I wanted to or not. So, this trained me for talking to anyone throughout my life rich or poor or even crazy and how to help them and be kind to them. I learned to immediately read people and know what they needed from me in those moments very young.
When this was the most useful to me personally, didn't begin until I was about 15 when JFK (President Kennedy was assassinated). And I believed I didn't want to die a virgin so I started asking girls out on dates, especially the pretty blonde that sat behind me in English class in High School.
But, especially after age 18 I really struggled for enough meaning and reason to stay alive. I had a hard time with this simply because staying alive just for me I wasn't interested in at the time. I could get interested in taking care of a beautiful woman but that could also be very frustrating I found too, especially as a teenager. It wasn't until I got into my 20s when I began to feel I was close to being able to be married and raise a family. So, I didn't marry until I was 26 years of age even though I was serious about at least 2 girls before this. So, I guess I just wanted enough meaning in my life to feel like it was worth it to stay alive and go through all the suffering of being alive and working all the time.
I really understood quite well in the 1960s "born died 20 buried 60" that you see on many gravestones in England and the U.S. especially up to about 1900 AD.
So, I was looking for enough happiness to even choose to stay alive another day.
Then I looked at families where someone had committed suicide and realized what a chain reaction that often is where if one person offs themselves then others die either physically or mentally in a sort of chain reaction of desperation and chaos within families.
And at this point I knew I could never do this to my own family. I was much more responsible than that.
So, even when I wanted to be dead more than anything I still found ways to stay alive by counseling others from offing themselves and staying alive for girls that were in love with me one by one, especially from ages 21 to 25 when my wish to be dead was the strongest.
Eventually, my live in girlfriend got pregnant when I was 25 and she was 21 and we had my first child, a son who is now 45 years old and just moved back from South Korea with his wife and my grandson about a year ago now.
So, as soon as my son was born I had to grow up and give up any ideas of offing myself completely and find ways to support my wife and son. So, I started to move in the direction of owning businesses by my late 20s and early 30s so I could more be "Captain of my own ship and master of my own destiny".
So, for me, finding enough meaning in my life to stay alive for came when my son was born. By age 29 I was a single father raising my son with the help sometimes of my parents and then at 32 I married a divorced lady with two children one year and 3 years older than my son.
So, for me, finding meaning I found in God and in my son that gave me the strength to go on living in a world that can be very difficult to want to stay alive in.
Now I'm 71 years old and have three biological children ages 23, 30, and 45 and step children 46, 48, 34 and around 40. So, my life has been very full of meaning ever since my son was born in 1974 when I was 26.
By God's Grace
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