Ridley Jones says...

We are not our parents. We're not. You've probably heard all your life that the traits you've found so annoying in your mother or your father will eventually manifest themselves in your own personality. Maybe you even believe it. Personally, 1 think it's bullshit. It's a cop-out, something people tell themselves to feel better about not taking responsibility for their lives. Maybe if you go through your life without examining yourself, without dealing with your issues, without consciously deciding what to bring forward and what to leave be¬hind, or if you can't take responsibility for your own inner happiness, then perhaps it is likely that you become the drunk, the abuser, the cold and distant judge your mother or your father was. But I believe you have a choice. I believe we all choose our lives, that our existence is the sum of our choices—the little ones, the big ones. We don't always choose what happens to us, and we don't choose where we came from, but we do choose how we react to the events of our lives. We choose to be destroyed or to grow wiser. Nietzsche (whom I always thought was a bit of a psychopath) said, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I cling to this philosophy; I need to believe it.

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Ridley is a character in "Sliver of Truth" by Lisa Unger