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    Is That It?
    Is That It?
    Is That It?
    Ebook144 pages2 hours

    Is That It?

    By John Prentice

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    About this ebook

    A book that helps you to take stock of your life, to consider who you are, what you stand for and where you are heading in the future.
    Most people, whatever their race, creed or colour, will at some time in their life have pondered the meaning of it - what's the purpose of it all?
    They are unlikely to have found an answer to that question, but in this increasing cynical world of ours, we can at least consider what our own part in it is.
    This book tries to rekindle that search, to rediscover the goodness within and to re-build a desire to make a difference.
    It is a book that inspires you on a journey of spiritual growth and enrichment of the soul, but it does so in a very down to earth manner.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Prentice
    Release dateMay 11, 2017
    ISBN9781370694099
    Is That It?
    Author

    John Prentice

    My StoryAt 8 years old I wasn’t much of a reader, in fact for me my bike was my world. If it didn’t have wheels and a chain I wasn’t much interested. This was back in the early 1970’s when television had yet to take a hold on the UK. Then one Saturday I visited a friends house and they were just settling down to listen to the radio, it was not something that I was accustomed to, but they invited me to sit and listen with them. At 8pm War of The Worlds serialised by the BBC burst into my life.You may have heard the story that when it was first broadcast on Halloween night in 1938 the response was immediate and passed into legend. As more than 6 million tuned in to the tale of the invasion from mars an estimated 1.2 million people believed that the radio play was real and panicked, jamming the roads in an attempt to escape.*From that night on, I was hooked, hooked on story, almost addicted to story and quickly became a voracious reader, consuming everything that I could get my hands on – including, after discovering where my father kept the keys to his bookcases, a few things perhaps I shouldn’t have.Now, as a professional writer, each day I enjoy the thrill of bringing words and worlds to life for others.And please, if you have feedback, I’d love to hear from you!www.sleepingkings.com*Study by Princeton professor, Hadley Cantril

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      Book preview

      Is That It? - John Prentice

      IS THAT IT?

      TAKING STOCK OF YOUR LIFE

      JOHN PRENTICE

      BRIGSLEY WESTWOOD PUBLISHING

      Is That It?

      By John Prentice

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2017 John Prentice

      Chapters

      Dedication

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 – In the Beginning

      Chapter 2 – Man’s way or God’s way?

      Chapter 3 – Who am I?

      Chapter 4 - Society

      Chapter 5 – What’s the purpose of it all?

      Chapter 6 – So what can I do?

      Chapter 7 – Good and evil

      Chapter 8 - The ten most frequently asked questions about God

      Chapter 9 – Conclusions

      Dedication

      To Mark, who I never found the courage to show this book to.

      Introduction

      This book is dedicated to the silent majority. Those people who, at some time in their lives, have asked questions such as: who am I? Why am I here? And what’s the purpose of it all?

      These are the ordinary men and women on the street, the vast majority of people who simply get on with their lives doing the best they can and trying desperately to make sense of a society that appears to have gone awry. But they have no voice in society, no say and no power.

      They are a kind and loving people: down to earth, totally honest and willing to help anyone out wherever they can. They just get on with their lives, trusting and hoping in the goodness of others. But they rarely stop to think about their own lives and this book is designed to address that situation.

      It’s part of our nature to want to know why we exist or to understand where we belong in the greater scheme of life. Unfortunately, however, there’s no consensus or agreement about the answer to such questions.

      This book has been written to help people to take stock of their lives and to find inner strength by removing self-doubt and increasing self-confidence.

      Such a book is necessary because, as we shall see, few people ever really question the purpose of their lives; instead, they simply drift through it, following a path destined by childhood conditioning and society’s proclaimed standards.

      When my granddaughter was just four years old, she lived in a big city that I was not very familiar with.

      One day, I took her to find an Early Learning Centre shop to buy some crayons.

      She was adamant that she knew where the shop was, so we marched off in this direction, then that direction, turning left and then right. All the time she kept saying, Come on, Grandpa, it’s just down here.

      As you’ve already guessed, we eventually came to a dead end.

      I know, she said. Let’s go back and ask Grandma. She’ll know where it is.

      You could give her any subject on earth to talk about and she’d rattle on for minutes authentically discussing it – or at least it appeared that way.

      We chuckled at this naivety, at her innocence, because of course she hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. She was only four years old, for goodness’ sake.

      But here’s the moral of the story: in terms of understanding the true mystery of life, I’m probably only about four years old myself. At least that’s how much knowledge I’ve realistically gained.

      So although in this book it might sound as though I know what I’m talking about, in reality there will be a thousand and one things that I haven’t factored in, and you would do well to remember this.

      Another event that happened in my earlier life was that I had to attend an Open University summer school as part of a degree course. The university sent me a poem a few weeks beforehand that I was asked to study in order to unscramble its meaning.

      The poem, which was about miners, was so vague that it was almost impossible to interpret. I presume this was the reason it was chosen in the first place. During our attendance that week, the lecturer proceeded to decipher the poem and outline its meaning.

      Everyone was hugely relieved; at long last, they knew the poem’s meaning. They had been struggling for so long with the vagueness of it and it had been driving them all mad.

      I disagreed. I explained that although we had now been given an interpretation of the poem, the poem was so bewildering that there was absolutely no guarantee that this was the right or only explanation.

      I argued that previously we knew that we didn’t have the answer; now we only thought we had it. In many ways, we were actually worse off than before, because now we were possibly deluding ourselves by claiming knowledge that we didn’t in fact possess.

      However, the others were all very happy. They had their answer and they weren’t really bothered if it was the right one or not. In their eyes they didn’t have to struggle with uncertainty anymore. This was brilliant for them because they had found the problem to be extremely uncomfortable.

      And that’s a bit like this book.

      At first glance, the book may seem to present factual answers to our search, but this is not its intention. Instead, it tries to take a hugely complex subject and to present a series of thought-provoking discussion topics that allow the reader to question their own preconceived ideas.

      Each of the topics covered is open to interpretation, and this is exactly the point. The book takes an extreme position in order to allow the reader to better understand their own point of view and to adapt and modify that view where necessary.

      The book gently guides you through a series of searching questions and tries to make sense of this crazy world, where there seem to be no answers to any penetrating questions. This is all the book tries to do, to open up a debate.

      In reading the book you will, hopefully, come to your own conclusions, and in doing so you will challenge everything I have written. But you will at least have considered each subject in detail, and you should be better prepared to understand why you hold the views that you do.

      The book illustrates my own passage in life, but this is not necessarily the same as yours. You cannot lead your life simply by following my suggestions. You need to work out your own path, your own beliefs and your own values.

      It should also be noted that certain conclusions in the book are not meant to be definitive. They are merely one of any number of arguments that could have been chosen, but this method was selected because it does offer differing opinions and encourages discussion. The book then talks about generalities, not the specifics of your own life.

      Similarly, the book is not for purists, because some statements may not necessarily be 100% factually accurate. The book is designed only to illustrate the essence of a subject, its intrinsic nature, not its precise or historical accuracy. Not everyone will like or agree with this stance.

      The book is for those people with an open mind who want to take stock of their lives. People who want to assess if their lives are going in the right direction or who feel that they would like to understand more about themselves.

      And for those who are stuck in a rut, it contains numerous suggestions to help you move forward.

      The book can best be described as a road map. It contains a variety of journeys, maps and directions. What it does not do is plan or suggest any specific route.

      It’s for you to decide which direction you want your life to take, which route you want it to go in and what specific pitfalls you wish to avoid along the way.

      Good luck!

      Chapter 1 – In the Beginning

      Virtually every human being will, at some time in their life, have asked the question, How did the world begin? It’s not surprising that we want to know the answer, because without it, we can’t understand why we are here or what the future holds.

      How did we get here?

      Currently there are two different theories of how the universe began. In simple terms, one argues that two planets collided and that a large chunk of one of these fell away and formed the earth. The subsequent fallout of atoms, molecules and planetary debris from this collision created basic organisms from which all future life forms grew. The other theory is that an all-powerful being called God created the whole of the earth and everything on it.

      Both of these theories seem so far-fetched that at face value it’s difficult to believe either of them. But as we saw earlier, human beings need answers and so the two theories above have flourished. This is because they appear to make sense of the unknown.

      Scientific theory tries to explain things by looking for patterns which can be measured, analysed or systematically repeated under scientific conditions, and to date it has suggested that all living things developed from molecules that could replicate or copy themselves by adapting and changing over time. This is known as the theory of evolution.

      Whilst this might explain the structure of our bodies, in my opinion human beings have more to do with emotional factors. Things such as love, tenderness, affection and being at one with each other. These are values that are totally alien in regard to inert substances such as atoms, molecules and rocks, so, if the scientific theory is correct, I would want to know – where did these human values come from?

      When I look at the beauty of the world, I can only think in terms of a God who understood such attributes: the beauty of flowers, the colours, the varieties, all growing from the tiniest of seeds to create such glorious living things.

      Look also at the sky and the snow, the rain clouds, the sun, the different colours and hues drifting and swirling with majesty, and the love that automatically wells up in us at the sight of children. The rivers and seas and the stars at night – are we really to believe that these were all created by mere accident?

      Search your soul and look at the tenderness inside, the beauty and the love that you are capable of. Do you really believe that this came about by pure accident or that it was just as a result of planets exploding and molecules combining?

      Go to a school and watch the children playing – see their laughter, their hope and joy, and their trust in the goodness of life. Look at their innocence and

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