On mushrooms

I’d been working my ass off at college and the pressure was getting to me, to the point where I started losing my hair.
I went away with friends, a bunch of them, to a holiday house one of their parent’s owned, near a forest and about 15 of us took mushrooms then went on a hike.
Trying to control 15 people on mushrooms is almost impossible and quite honestly, what I used to enjoy the most while on mushrooms was to just explore and get lost in the things around me. But we had to be quite ‘strict’ for want of better words in terms of handling people and making sure we got back before it was dark and so on.
On the way back, I was walking at the end of the line, we passed what was, for me, the most beautiful view of a river with a cliff behind it.
I decided: Fuck it. Everyone else can carry on. I want to be here right now.
I still have the notebook where I wrote down the words
“If you smoke, drink, go to college, don’t go to college, complete your assignments or not, it’s all entirely up to you. You choose this, every day. You forget how completely in control you are. And it scares you.”
Several minutes later, everyone turned around when they realised I wasn’t with them, came back, and sat down next to the river with me.
I’m an atheist but it was an almost spiritual experience for me. Since that day, 10 years ago now, I know that I’m at this job, I drive this car, I live in this house, I do the things I do because I want to. And while it doesn’t make any of those things better, in a way, the constant thought at the back of my mind that no one’s got a gun to my head, I am doing the things that I ultimately want to do, brings me a constant sense of tremendous peace.