Falling through the endless blue sky, the rush of wind against his cheeks, Michael Walker finally felt he was living the life he wanted. He’d long craved speed, and here he was, hurtling toward the earth, miles of blissful air between him and the ground.  

It was an extraordinary leap of freedom for a young man born to a family of strict rules and beliefs. Amish boys don’t get into airplanes. They certainly don’t dive from them. 

“Going up two miles into the air and then jumping out of the plane was really scary,” he said, “but I took faith that everything would be okay.”

It had been only a few years since Walker left everything behind to chase his dreams, and in some ways, he was still in freefall. But he’d never doubted his decision to jump. His fascination with the technology so forbidden by his upbringing had become his calling—“I felt,” he said, “like I couldn’t live without it.”

Walker was born in Apple Creek, a small village in northeastern Ohio with a sizable Amish population. His mother died when he was just 11, leaving Walker’s father to raise his four sons and two daughters on his own. The family was part of the Swartzentruber Amish, one of the most conservative and best-known subgroups of Old Order Amish, recognized by their plain dress and strict avoidance of modern technology. It’s their belief that one honors God through a simple life, free from the distractions of signs, symbols and artifacts of the English, or non-Amish, secular world.  

Walker spent his youth toiling away on the family farm, rising with the sun to milk the cows and feed the horses. He mucked stalls and repaired broken fences. During harvesting season, he could spend 14 hours a day husking and piling corn. 

The work was mundane and exhausting. Walker yearned for more—something faster, louder. 

He found himself infatuated with his neighbor’s radio. 

“It just intrigued me,” he said, “how something that small can make that sound.”

Radios, of course, were forbidden in his world. The Swartzentruber Amish avoid not only cars, telephones and computers, but also most electricity and indoor plumbing. They dress in browns and grays and frown on lavish, worldly colors. They stop attending school after the eighth grade. Walker would listen to his father loudly and forcefully proclaim that both higher education and technology were the tools of the devil—distractions and temptations to stop doing less physical labor and less dutiful reverence to the Lord.

But Walker couldn’t fight this temptation. He inched his way toward the banned devices until he was able to get one of his own.    

“A radio was the first thing that I could really get cheap,” he said. “I was able to go to a thrift store and buy it for like $8. It was an old clock. It was like a fortune to me.”

Slowly he began to collect his new, taboo treasures, squirreling them away beneath his mattress and bed sheets where his father wouldn’t find them. He purchased a CD player so he could listen to popular music—back then, Katy Perry and Alan Jackson were particular favorites. He saved up to buy a phone. He watched television at a neighbor’s house.

He pretended to be Amish until he no longer could.     

One Saturday, a few months before he turned 18, he told his brothers and sisters he was leaving. That spring day, he stepped away from the farm and into an exciting, unsettling world.

It is not unheard of for young Amish men and women to flee their communities. Some subgroups observe a rite of passage called rumspringa, where adolescent misbehavior, including time spent in the English world, is overlooked rather than harshly condemned. While Walker was the first of his siblings to leave, even his father had stepped away from the community as a young man, returning when he found little of interest and substance out there.

But for Walker, there would be no turning back. His eyes were opened by the English world. He landed a job working in a large furniture company that employed hundreds of ex-Amish and English workers, and while it was a grind, he was used to that. His new life traded buggies for cars, and he marveled at how he could arrive at his destination in minutes, a far cry from the hours it took to prepare and ride a horse and buggy for a three-mile trip. He felt exhilarated moving at this new speed.

Still, he wanted more. His job at the furniture store barely covered the bills, and his options for advancement were limited by his eighth grade education. He decided his next step would be to earn his GED, and “what I noticed is that I felt so fulfilled,” he said. “Up until I started the GED, I was down. I didn’t have a lot of work—sometimes only two days a week, which doesn’t really pay the bills. College felt more doable after I noticed how well it went with the GED.”

Furthering his education and working toward a dream job suddenly felt within his grasp. Walker applied for federal student aid at Columbus State Community College but was told that, to move forward, he would need an income statement from his father. 

In the Amish community, the father-son relationship is a sacred bond. Anything or anyone that gets in the way is viewed as demonic in nature and must be extracted from the family and community. Any violation is met with zero tolerance. No choice, no mercy, no forgiveness—there is no going back. 

Walker had been the one to sever that bond, and now he had proof of his punishment. He reached out to his father, “and he basically told me that he wouldn’t do it,” he said. “And I shouldn’t bother coming back.”

As a boy, Walker often found himself wounded and angry over his father’s intolerance of his interests and curiosities, numbed by the harsh tone and relentless edicts. But the years had softened the impact. In time, he’d grow to take on a more forgiving, even appreciative view of his father’s choices.   

“I know it sounds really strange to say, but I think it was good he disowned me in the long run,” he said. “That was a big turning point. Even though I was English and he was Amish, I still kind of felt like I owed him for raising me and everything. Him disowning me pretty much threw that out the door. It canceled the debt.” 

Walker got the loan without his father’s help. He powered through community college. It turned out his Amish education had prepared him for even rigorous college classes. He graduated with an associate degree and enrolled at The Ohio State University, where the young man who was once forbidden to use a radio decided to major in computer information science. 

He also took an elective course in skydiving because it scared him. The first time Walker got in an airplane, he jumped from it. 

“I had never actually flown before,” he said. “I didn’t really know how I would feel. I was unsure how I would react. And everything was OK. It was one of the greatest experiences that I had ever had.”

In 2020, he graduated from Ohio State, accepted a job as a software developer and was promoted within five months. He rented a small apartment a few miles from his job to save up for his own house—one that, unlike his childhood home, will include electricity and indoor plumbing.

The farm is far behind him. 

Walker’s story is a complicated, difficult one. He had to sacrifice everything he knew to become the man he is today. He’s had to wrestle with the loneliness and isolation that so often accompanies a journey of self-reflection and discovery. And he’s had to come to terms with the principled man whose actions are dictated by the tenants of a strict, rule-bound culture — his father. 

“I could not treasure what I learned from my father, or who he has been for me, when I was seeing him only from a point of bitterness,” Walker said. “When I changed my lens to a more appreciative stance, to what we had in common and what I have learned from him—even reluctantly— I could begin to recognize his genuine goodness in the midst of our prickly past. Today, I can see a more fully formed, fleshed-out father, not just a narrowly sketched out farmer with a rule book. It’s hard to do all this, but it’s been liberating for me.”

If you find yourself in a world where you don’t feel like you belong, think of Michael Walker’s journey. Think of his father’s. Listen to that voice inside you, and make a choice.

You can either stay and find your place—or take that terrifying, freeing leap.