Who Is Going To Stop Us

Ayn Rand, the author of the classic novel, Atlas Shrugged, once said, “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” This is my favorite quote and has stuck with me ever since I stumbled on it several years ago. The beauty of this profound bit of wisdom is in its simplicity and can easily be applied to just about every one of us and every ambition or goal. You simply must fit it to you. For me, it applied to both my writing and my sobriety.

In my past, I have made quite a few bad decisions, but doing drugs had to top the entire list. I was born with a condition that causes my spine to slowly and continuously pinch off my nerves. I had not even known about it until I was about nineteen years old and had found out from a doctor when I saw him due to back pain. Neither did my parents. It causes me to be in constant pain. Because of that, when I found narcotics, it felt like a match made in heaven. I could go into detail, but let us save that story for another day.

Long story short, over the proceeding years, I quickly fell into a deep, dark pit; one that everybody else calls addiction. I had created my own personal hell on Earth; one in which nobody trusted or believed in me in any way. The general consensus was that I was nothing but a grimy addict and I would never be anything other than. They were not going to let me.

I was talked into doing something about it by my older brother, and after I had managed to get that poison to release its deadly grip on me, I was “off to the races,” sort of speak. No one could “stop me” at that point. I would not let it happen because it was quite literally a matter of life and death.

I continued to thrive from that point on, moving out of the rehabilitation center after completing the entire nine-month program and getting an entry-level production operator position at a factory within only a week. I went on to get my driver’s license back, buy my own car, get sole custody of both of my children, and even afforded a week-long vacation to sunny Phoenix, Arizona. I had only been stopped once since because of my past (I had honestly expected to be stopped a lot more). I have mentored several other addicts and even helped a local government organization establish a relationship with my place of work to help unemployed citizens of the county get a job, all the while maintaining my sobriety. I continued to quickly move up the ladder at work until I was able to get an office position at the same workplace, over doubling my starting wages within six years. As far as I was concerned, everything was coming up “Ryan.”

Being that I had experienced so much success and continue to do so, I decided it was time for a new adventure. All around me I was hearing story after story about families being broken up because of drugs and addicts dying due to overdose left and right. Please pardon the cliché but they were dropping like flies and I felt that I should try to help, so right then and there I decided to write my first book telling everybody about what I had gone through and how I had managed to break free (addiction is very much like a mental prison).

At first it was just a fin project to work on, putting my mental efforts to use while utilizing my creativity. Soon, through the process of writing, editing, and publishing my work, an epiphany dawned on me as if it were a bright light that had been suddenly turned on somewhere inside my head. I really enjoyed writing. I really did not know that about myself.

Writing had brought a sense of freedom that I had never felt. Years ago, I had been a musician and I have always loved it. Writing (and furthermore publishing) my work had given me that rush that I used to live for; that same enjoyable sense of self-satisfaction that I had gotten every time that I had written another song or played another show. By this time, I had already learned of Ayn Rand’s quote and it became obvious that it was time to apply it again because, well, who is going to stop me?

Since then I have published two books and a short story (and I am preparing to publish a second story) that are put up for sale online. I have also started writing my first novel, an action/adventure about a revolution in the far future of the United States of America, and budgeted money for a bit of advertisement. I’ve sat down and written several haikus and other poems, and I’ve started putting thought into other creative projects, such as painting and possibly YouTube videos, because nothing seems to satisfy me quite like creating from my own thoughts. Today I am a nobody, not even close to being a blip on the radar. And I am okay with that because I have made peace with it. However, I promise that someday I will be a somebody. I will never ask “Who is going to let me?” again, and I suggest everybody do the same because the wisdom of this quote is quite simple. Who is going to stop us?