Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!

Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

Grady, May 16, 2011 (view all comments by Grady)
‘Don’t debate who you are; be who you are’: The Right to Unconditional Love

'My objective in writing this book was to encourage us all, at a minimum, to realistically examine our beliefs - especially how and why those beliefs came about. It's fair to say that the choices we're never given are the choices most will never make. Government and religion are intent on laying the ground rules for us to live by, and our mob mentality to be like others creates a false sense of acceptance as if society's values are our own.' This quotation is not the opening of this extraordinarily sensitive book/memoir by Aaron Anson, MIND YOUR OWN LIFE: THE JOURNEY BACK TO LOVE, but after reading this book several times it seems to be the essential core form which the rest of the book was drawn. Aaron Anson bravely goes where few others will tread in public light, sharing his own journey in coming to grips with a world that seemed to reject him, and in doing so he provides a Gilead in a narrative of love, acceptance, freedom, and happiness. With the publication of this book he steps into the role of a significant contemporary philosopher redesigning our concept of socialization and even civilization. But who is this erudite writer, this man who courageously seeks to break down barriers of prejudice?

Investigation into his background reveals the following: Aaron Anson is an inspirational writer and new thought coach who is married and lives in Washington, DC with his partner Oliver, where they operate a small computer technology firm. He is currently at work on another book and has appeared on several radio shows and spoken at a number of literary events around the country. MIND YOUR OWN LIFE, his first book, began as a journal of his life and eventually unfolded into a book. Before then he did not consider being a writer and accepted the creation that his writing instead chose him as a vessel for those with muted voices longing to be heard and those striving for an authentic affirmation of self-love. Raised a devout Christian in the South and endeavoring to uphold indoctrinated beliefs, he struggled to suppress his nascent sexual attraction hoping to escape the ambiguity of being gay with Christian beliefs. After a stint in the military he married and fathered two children before accepting that he was inherently a gay man. His fascination with the arts, world cultures, and all of humanity has led him to travel six continents. Anson is passionated about empowering teenagers gay and straight alike who struggle to find their place amidst the bombardment of excessive political and religious rhetoric. He has participated in relief efforts around the world and several missions that address homelessness.'

What Anson brings to the reader's attention is a book well written and obviously experienced that has many topics to examine - prejudice, religious intolerance, government intolerance, hypocrisy - all made the more poignant because he relates these conundrums to his own sexuality. The struggles this man has suffered he refuses to quantify or maintain as smoldering embers of a past. Instead he has become a spokesman for human rights - be those rights race based, sexual identity based, or defining how God should be interpreted - the right to be ourselves. His message is one of 'minding our own lives', taking responsibility for being the person we were created to be instead of the droid society and religion and government has designed as the standard. In Anson's words: 'If we choose to take our minds and lives here on earth and turn them over to others for the handling, and disbursement of information, that to me is religious. If I seek my own awareness and explore my uniquely personal connection to the Universe, then that is spiritual, and this is where I choose to operate.'

Aaron Anson has provided a handbook for young people who are confused and for adult who have lost direction in society's maze designed to define us. This is a smart, informing, and profoundly moving book.

Grady Harp

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)

report this comment

Product Details

ISBN:

9781452532899

Author:

Anson, Aaron

Publisher:

Balboa Press

Subject:

Biography - General

Publication Date:

20110531

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Language:

English