Matthew Perry

When I was was a kid I wanted to be a chemist when I grew up. Later, as a teenager I wanted to trek across South America. What I did instead was hit my head really hard, and get amnesia. I was like one of those rare cases like in the movie Momento, except I could make new memories, I just couldn't remember anything from before my head injury (you know, like my childhood and all that stuff). Also, I kept it a secret, and didn't make any million dollar movie deals, so that's probably why you've never heard of me. I had amnesia for ten years. Mostly I just survived, floating around without much drive to do anything. I lived in extreme poverty for all of those ten years, and for a few more afterwards. When I wrote this book I was working as a cashier in a grocery store, I am not some glamorous best-seller that appears on some list in the New York times. But what I am is someone who woke up one day, and found himself strongly disliking the guy looking back at me in the mirror. I didn't like the choices I was making, I didn't like how I reacted to situations, I didn't like how scared I had become of the world around me. So, I changed myself, using my own thoughts to destroy my own personality, so I could simply build a new one. A personality of my own making. And, while I did this, I wrote it all down. That's what this book is, part how-to, and part map of my own mind. Despite having brain damage, and a ten-year setback on life, I now have a B.S. degree in Human Biology, and I am working on a Master's in Applied Clinical Nutrition, while getting my Doctorate degree in Chiropractic medicine. I am married to my soul mate, and have everything I could possibly want. For me, changing my personality changed my worldview, which changed the actual world around me. I live a chosen life, I think anyone can.