Controversy is Influence by Julie

Controversy is Influence by Julie - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

How can a book influence your life? A book influences your life by challenging your perspectives. A book influences your life by challenging your views. A book influences your life by challenging every thought you ever had. In order for this to happen, the book has to be controversial in some aspect. This is simply not possible without containing controversial topics. Therefore, I am blatantly challenging your requirement for topics to not be of a controversial matter. It is simply not possible for a book to truly influence your life if it does not raise controversy in some way. To get true answers to this prompt, you have to be prepared for controversy. To get true results and actual life influence, you have to challenge viewpoints. This is controversy. This is change.
The book that influenced my life the most is Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God. The title of the book implies a Christian based religious book. This is not the case. Can it be interpreted that way? Of course. However, this book resonates with me on a basis not related to Christianity. I am not a religious person. In fact, I challenge the traditional views of organized religion. I challenge those views because common teachings of the Christian religion dictate how one should think and behave. How is that beneficial? What good is it for the sake of individual people and society if we are forced to act a certain way? Ultimately, this can work against your goal. Instead, teach people to think for themselves. Teach people to challenge traditional viewpoints. Teach people to evolve. This is what this book means to me.
One way this book challenges individual viewpoints is by affirming that we are all one. There is no “God.” Instead, we are all “God.” Think about this. How do I relate to you? How do you relate others? The actions of one can influence the actions of many. If you ponder this further, you will see that we influence others as well as nature. We are all dependent on others. My trash accumulates in a heap just like yours. This leeches into the earth and water. In turn it comes back to us. We are all interconnected. We are all one.
Another aspect of this same idea is that we are our own “God.” What does this mean? If I want to get accepted to a good school, I am going to study. I will perform my best and obtain the most knowledge possible. I will not wait around for “God” to grant this to me. I am my own “God” by making this possible on my own. I influence my own success and future. This influence impacts you in one way or another. The circle keeps going. We are all one. This is what makes up the universe.
One other controversial topic this book brings to light is the fact that no action is inherently evil. Read that again. No action is inherently evil. In other words, evil does not exist. I know what you are thinking. You think I’m wrong. After all, look at evils in the world. Consider the horrible crimes that range from murder to rape (gasp, that’s controversial!) to the concentration camps of World War II. Are these actions evil? In common terms, yes. But are they really? Don’t the people committing these crimes believe they are in the right? Of course they do. They all have their own beliefs and reasons for committing these horrendous actions. But does that make them evil just because they are not what we would do? No. That would be like saying reading is evil (maybe it is, after all this is highly controversial and now you may believe this book should be banned). To us reading is not evil. That does not mean others believe it is. Therefore, no evil exists.
Neale Donald Walsch takes this concept one step further in asserting that you have to know bad in order to appreciate the good. An enlightening moment for me was when I realized this was true. How do you experience joy if you have not experienced grief? How do you truly know success if you have not realized failure? My own experiences have brought this concept to light. I was in a toxic relationship and marriage for almost a decade. I lived with constant anxiety and fear. I lost myself. Now? Now I am happier and freer than ever. Now I go for things without worry. I had to know the bad in order to appreciate the good. Look again at my examples in the previous paragraph. How do you appreciate life without knowing murder and death? How do you appreciate sexual intimacy and trust without rape existing? How do we know and realize the good for all without seeing the mass extinctions of the concentration camps? We don’t. Once again, there is no evil. How can there be when its purpose is to realize the great?
My viewpoints were challenged by this book. I believe we are all one. I believe “God” refers to us as individuals. I believe all experiences serve a purpose, leading to evil not truly existing. I encourage you to ponder this. I encourage you to challenge your own viewpoints. I encourage you to read the book that was the most influential in my life.