Lamar, Although I didn’t have the guts to try your escapism route, I sure felt the same way, yet I went the other way to get some of those self esteem building diplomas you use to be envious of. And you were right they left me with the same empty feeling of unworthiness you experienced after your escapist trips. Then I started to escape from external social, economic and religious bias and decided to escape to travel the inner shadows of my hidden universe, where I found the inclusive awareness of un-attachment, that allowed me to do fearless attempts of finding the bright side of anything within the infinite contrasting nature of the cycles of duality. Then I started to see myself in the right spot, right time and in the right action all the time, and never was sorry of whatever I had done in my past. It was at my 70th birthday four years ago, when I started writing my books that I reached that aha moment. http://ifigueroa.allauthor.com/