Excerpt from the novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky

“I’m not the way I am because of what I dreamt and remembered about my aunt Helen.  That’s what I figured out when things got quiet.  And I think that’s very important to know.  It made things feel clear and together.  Don’t get me wrong.  I know what happened was important.  And I needed to remember it.  But it’s like when my doctor told me the story of these two brothers whose dad was a bad alcoholic.  One brother grew up to be a successful carpenter who never drank.  The other brother ended up being a drinker as bad as his dad was.  When they asked the first brother why he didn’t drink, he said that after he saw what it did to his father, he could never bring himself to even try it.  When they asked the other brother, he said that he guessed he learned how to drink on his father’s knee.  So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons.  And maybe we’ll never know most of them.  But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.  We can still do things.  And we can try to feel okay about them.”

**What are you choosing?

 

~From the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

~ by cjt on December 21, 2009.