I was raised a JW since childhood up to the age of 16. At that age I decided that I didn't want to go to to the meetings. That decision was taken in lew of reading a lot about different philosophies. I didn't consider one philosophy to be right, but everyone of them had something that inspired me to be a better person. It's amazing how some people see the world differently, and it's even more amazing reading about their views. Ayn Rand's writings, for example, gave me a whole new look as the world I knew.
I went through a lot of emotions when I took that decision of not being a JW. My parents were hard on me at the beginning, and almost felt into a state of depression. As soon as I turned 18 I moved out and started working. I starting working in construction, which demanded 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for 2 years straight. Didn't have much time to read anymore, much less go to school.
Some principles still stayed with me, like the Golden Rule that Jesus taught. When I was a JW I used to think that a regular man could not be as blessed if you didn't have God in your life. So that kind of stayed with me for years to come.
One hot summer day while I was digging ditches for the crane's electrical line, I stood there thinking about my life and how it hadn't turned out like I wanted to. "By this time I would've been on my third year of college...." I said to myself, and daydreamed about how college life would've been like. I remembered Ayn Rand's book "The Fountainhead" and thought about the character Roark. How he worked in the construction doing range of things, and I got this huge inspiration to do my best in what I was doing.
Since I've always been excellent at math I used that as my strenght point. I went out and bought myself an IT-83 calculator for $120, and used the programming feauture that it has (learned how to do it in High School). I started doing some small programs that helped me do field calculations. So in a year I just watched and took notes whenever I worked with someone that had to do such calculations and perfected my programs and where it would apply.
Needless to say that they noticed that and asked me how did I do that. I showed them the thinking behind it and were impressed. In the next year I slowly moved into an office job where I'm now...I'm 24 and I have accomplished so much in 3 years, somethings that take other people working in the same field 10 to 20 years (Just speculating and I have been told that)
I'm proud of the decisions I've made. This year I started going to College, and I'm so happy and proud of myself.
I wish everyone of you the same luck that I've had.