Living Survival Mode

By AnneMarie Geertsen

If I had one word of advice to give is find your inspiration whether it's a person, thing, place, animal just find it. It will lead you the right way but only if you want it to. Weird enough to say it may even be something or someone who has been a negative impact in your life but you choose to see the lesson, the positive side in the situation. That is the most important thing and what will get you to live a great life and have you LIVING instead of SURVIVING!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781773706047

Book preview

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Living

Survival

Mode

Anne-Marie Geertsen

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

My goal

Your Compass

First Attempt

Second attempt

February 24th, 2016

Looking back

Back to now

The beginning of a

Major change

Unexpected challenge

Conclusion

Copyright

Dedication

Dedicated to my loving father and to Arielle, the inspiration that brought me to writing this book.

Introduction

If I could give you advice on how to feel better, look better, be better, and love yourself, I advise you to go inside. My feet brought me to the gym, and my mouth chewed the right foods to eat. There is something that controls all of that. It’s your mind that wakes you up. You have to realize that you can control every move you make in a day. No one else could or should. You are the only one who should make decisions for your well-being. When I went to the gym, I felt amazing afterwards. Sure, for an hour and half I was sweating like a pig, but after that the feeling of working out stayed for hours, eventually days, and more. The same goes for food. I used to drink soft drinks and eat fast food almost every day, and I ate snacks every other moment. I was reflecting that I hated my body, so I would feed it with bad food. This is what led to my becoming overweight. It’s amazing that when you eat better and train, you look better. This leads to you feeling better, and then your confidence goes up. After twenty-five years, I finally had confidence in myself. It sounds simple, right? Well, yes, it is, but like everything in life, you have to work for it. You have to change habits and routines that have been imprinted in you forever. The only thing that kept me going was how I felt. It is important to talk to yourself every day. Encourage yourself. Love yourself.

You are the cause of what you look like, feel like, and what you do twenty-four hours a day. NO ONE ELSE. That is what I learned on January 14th, 2016. And it changed my life in the most amazingly positive way.

Over the past two years, I have experienced more emotions than I had in thirty-nine years put together from being dumped, having extreme suicidal thoughts, losing my job that I hated, my father’s passing, and the tragic death of a friend’s friend. I could have reacted by being discouraged and depressed, or by simply hanging on the edge of a cliff waiting for the final reason to jump. But instead, I just decided to change. I believe that is the reason why I am still here. After all of this, I need to be the one to help others be better and basically love themselves.

Why did I write this book? I asked myself that question after gathering twenty years’ worth of thoughts, feelings, situations, and events. Well, I felt I needed to tell my story. I might be just an average Jill that no one knows, but I felt that I needed to tell my story of transformation. I want people to live a better life and enjoy more of it. We don’t have very much time on this Earth — we have less time than we think. What pushed me to actually get off my butt and get my book self-published is the unfortunate death of a young, beautiful, twenty-four-year-old girl. Her whole life was in front of her. One of her friends told me that although she was only twenty-four, she had lived. She had lived, of course not nearly as long as she could have. But her death got me thinking that at thirty-eight, I wouldn’t have been able to say that I had lived, and at twenty-four, nor as much at twenty.

I dedicate this book to my friend, Arielle, who I will speak about later in the book. She is the one who most inspired me to think I have a chance to be someone again. Arielle turned out to be a great friend. She inspired me, moved me, and made me realize that I needed to live NOW. I have also become like my father on a lot of levels. I believe that the things I have learned in the past two years alone are enough to make me realize that I don’t want people to wait. I don’t want people to waste their time. What if that young girl had waited to go on her four-month trip to Asia? What if she had waited to go to school? I don’t want people to wait thirty-eight years to change, to start living, to love themself, and to enjoy the small things in life.

LIVE NOW. DON’T BE LIKE ME AND WAIT THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. DO IT NOW!

My goal

I urge you to follow your compass, and then you’ll understand what I mean. You will read about my past and where I came from, though it’s really what happened in the past two year that changed everything. I only started to live thirty-eight years after I was born, and that’s the truth. Now, it’s my life’s purpose to encourage you to wake up so that you can live. Just wake up at whatever age you are now; to me, age doesn’t matter. In the end, age is simply a number on your driver’s license. I once had no idea in the back of my mind of what I wanted to do besides my passions, which are sports, film, and travel. I have only recently learned what I truly want to do in life.

No matter the path we choose on this planet, the destination can just be as great for any one of us. It’s our determination, persistence, and willingness to never give up that will make the difference and bring us to where we are truly meant to be. I dedicate my book to the person who has inspired me the most over the past two year. Later I explain that we meet everyone for a reason. I know why I met Arielle. Without her, I would never have wanted to explore life and find the strength to be someone. I have realized that life is very short. Sadly, a friend’s friend had a tragic end at a young age. This tragedy brought me the realization that I need to get my story out, because the longer I wait, the longer people will be depressed, sad, and unhappy.