I believe I find purpose and meaning to my life because I've never got brainwashed into religion but instead found the empowerment of truth through knowledge. I was a curious kid growing up and had a lot of questions and wanted answers. When I was introduced to religion when I was about 4 something about it didn't fully make sense all the time and seemed like an unnecessary part of my life and the life of others. I didn't feel the need to do what religion wanted its followers to do and in fact actually felt restricted by religion because of all these rules and rituals that felt unauthentic and unnecessary. I wanted to know the truth to things, not just have answers but truthful ones even though I was so young.

It was because I was that young that I wanted answers since I didn't know much about everything. I was open to religion at first testing whether it was truly valid because all I was searching for was truth and wasn't picking sides. I used fundamental basic logic reasoning that anyone is capable of using even a child, observed my surroundings, observed things, experimented on whether my results would come out the same whenever I would test them. This sounds a lot like science but really all I was trying to do was use methods that seemed accurate enough to give me truths. I wasn't even taught the scientific method or any of that yet but in ways I was performing it without realizing it at such a young age.

It was an excitement and relief to know that religion was not real, rather false, but also a disappointment seeing how the rest of the world seemed to fall for it as well as my parents. Honestly I feared God when I was taught about his so called existence so it was a relief knowing that a supreme being was not going to control everything that was and will happen to my life according to whether I stayed in check within God's ideology. It's not that I had anything to hide but I felt like I was being ruled over by a dictator if in fact there was such a God. I was prepared to face this truth if that's what it turned out to be but it wasn't.

I felt like my life would not have had as great of a meaning thinking that every decision and thought was being measured by a supreme being and that I would have to be kept in check if I wanted good things to happen in my life. I was almost prepared to fall under the strategies that religious people use to not feel this way, restricted like a slave, and confront this delusion in a more positive scope, living a life of delusion thinking that it's a reality, but something didn't feel right about shutting down logic whenever it came to religious topics.

y the age of 5 I came to the conclusion that religion was false not because it would have been a convenient truth for me but because I was ready to embrace whatever truth was to come whether I liked it or not because the only things I wanted to follow were truths and didn't want to live a life of lies and delusions. I wanted to confront whatever harsh truth came my way and just dealt with it but make sure that it truly was a valid reality. It was an adventure to me to try to figure things out on my own and to truly know that I'm finding and following the truth to things.

This is what gave me purpose and meaning to my life ever since because I knew that I was right even if most people would think me wrong and I was able to back up and prove my findings. I also viewed my future to be bright because I was the one who would be in control of my own life so whatever I wanted to achieve in life I knew it was all up to me and whether I could figure it out and pull it off to make it happen. Through that I knew I could go far in life viewing reality for what it is, following the truths to things and getting the results that I want in life and when I didn't it was because I knew I did something wrong and was just a matter of figuring out what it was that I did wrong.

This I knew was a true way of getting results, growing, being productive, and successful rather than leaving your life up to a supreme being and thinking that you didn't suck up hard enough or that God knows better and works in mysterious ways and that's why you didn't get what you wanted in life. I realized this at a young age and if religion is how everyone is living their life I had tremendous hope and aspiration in knowing that I was personally going to do big things and fulfill all my dreams unlike everyone else.

- Cesar Valencia