Say Yes To Life

Welcome to my webpage, Say Yes To Life!

To give you a brief background; my name is Yoleen. I was born in 1960 in Oakland, California, which is an odd mixture of bungalow and Victorian house ghetto in the flatlands and grand mansions in the hills. Though it is a suburb of San Francisco, it contains woodsy hiking areas like Joaquin Miller and Redwood Park. I grew up in an odd mixture of violence and elegance, narrow-mindedness and culture, mega-metropolis and nature.

I attended Oakland public schools until the 8th grade, when I escaped the system through Golden Gate Academy, a Seventh Day Adventist school. I also had the privilege of attending Pinecrest, a summer camp run by Seventh Day Adventists, for 8 glorious summers, from ages 9 to 16. Many of my best memories were made there.

I left Oakland soon as I turned 18. Since then, I have lived in many places; Southern California, Silicon Valley, and the Seattle area. Currently, I live on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Most likely, you know Seventh Day Adventists as vegetarians. You may also see them as a religion that is full of rules as to what people can’t do. As a youth, I chafed against those rules, and after turning 18, I left the church and went into rebellion. So often, people who do that go on to become addicts, or limit their futures in some other way. Thanks to what I had learned from the Adventist church, I was extremely fortunate not to fall into that trap. In fact, I discovered there is a tremendous amount of ignorance in the world; many people engage in the vices of drinking, drugs, gambling, and illicit sex because they don’t know any alternatives.

I have since returned to the Adventist church. I admit I don’t practice it rigidly, because I personally see nothing wrong with dancing, going to movies, and wearing jewelry. However, most of what they teach is right-on, and so I wish to pass this information on to the youths of today. (Actually, though this page is primarily directed at people between ages of 15 – 25, it’s open to EVERYONE.) Say Yes To Life is primarily a guide of positive ideas to incorporate into readers’ lives. For those of you who are unfortunate enough to be addicts, you need to realize there’s a lot more to overcoming your addiction than “just say no”. Avoiding the addictive substance is only the beginning; you need to fill the empty space with positive things, to avoid relapse. To those of you who are not addicts, this is how you stay that way.

Once again, welcome to the adventures of Say Yes To Life!