Who is the Reference Book?

I have decided to create this blog for many reasons. For years now, I have helped many people who I have been blessed to cross paths with. I have helped people in toxic relationships. I have helped people through terminal illnesses before they eventually got that surgery they dearly needed. I have talked to people that felt that they had nowhere to go and was on the verge of suicide, and they are all alive to this day and some even come to me to give advice.

I have motivated people to become more than they were. I have helped people find their passions and helped them unlock strengths that they have always had but just never saw it or had the courage to “get out of their comfort zone”.

 

With all that I have offered, I finally decided to finally listen and do exactly what I was telling everybody else to do all of this time. This time, I will step out of my comfort zone and do something that I have never felt would be productive for my audience as well as face my fear and speak my opinions about todays society and what I can do to possibly turn todays insecurities and struggles into tomorrows strength, beauty, confidence and happiness.

Throughout this blog, I will go as the name of “The Reference Book” but this post will be about me.

I AM ADAM RIVERA and this is my story.

I was born as a twin on March 18th, 1988. My mom says that we were her blessed to be twins because she was afraid of only having one child alone. Later on, you will hear more about him once he gives me permission to give out his name. I was, for the most part, raised by my mother where I had a very strict child hood. We were extremely sheltered for our protection. We grew up in a very rough neighborhood, but with the love of my family and my neighbors, we were raised to become extremely strong young men in a very cruel world. From the time that I was able to walk, I was made to be an athlete. My mother graduated with a degree to become a P.E. Coach when I was very young and I have always been into sports. My mother made sure that I was always into something. PERIOD.

 

She didn’t care what I was doing as long as I was doing something. Anything was better than being on the streets. I have been in many sports from baseball, basketball, soccer, track and field, speed skating and finally ended it with my passion which is triathlons. Throughout all of that time being a part of sports teams, I have learned a lot about friendships, relationships, teamwork and leadership. Throughout this post, you will see that everything that I have gone through will eventually create the person that I am today and I will nickname myself as “THE REFERENCE BOOK”

 

2006 is the year that I graduated from Hillsborough Senior High School in Tampa, Fl. Its funny that life doesn’t truly hit you until that first step crossing the threshold of the stage when receiving your diploma. So many mixed feelings and emotions. Among those, you also have a ton of questions. What now? Where will I go? What will I do?

I was completely lost while in complete ecstasy of knowing that I have finally finished all that I have known since birth. For about a year I was literally just going where the tide was taking me. I had no real goals for my future and eventually, just like most of us, we have to eventually touch the stove to know that its hot and that stove was scolding.

 

I left my mothers house and the age of 19. Being out of her house, I was away from all of the protection that I had and I learned really quick that life was not as understanding as it was portrayed to me to be. My father opened his doors for me and it was a complete 180 degree turn from how my mother raised me.

 

My fathers attitude towards life was that “You had to live life to understand life. No woman will every be able to teach you how to be a man and you need to make mistakes and learn from them if you expect to be a strong man.” With my mother, I had curfews. I was not allowed to date. I was not allowed to even taste alcohol until I was 21. I was not allowed to have friends over and surely was not allowed to go to others houses.

 

As a teenager who has never experienced much that all of my peers had experienced and my curiosity took over once I had the freedom to actually do things. At nineteen I found out the hard way that I can actually die from alcohol. At nineteen I finally felt true freedom to come and go as I pleased without having to check in and constantly say where I was going and who I was hanging out with.

With all of that freedom, I got into a lot of trouble. I was sleeping in my car for months at a time and made a lot of mistakes that I slowly but surely learned from. I needed to change. From here on out, you will learn what I have learned.

Through this blog, you will be viewing life in the eyes of The Reference Book. You will see where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going. You will see my views with todays society and I will dissect those topics so that, hopefully, we can become a greater, happier, stronger and loving society.