- Part 2 in a Study of Contrasts -

For nearly my entire childhood, life felt easy. 

Friendships came easily, good grades came with little effort, even my junior high saxophone days had me playing first chair in the concert band.  I won free stuff in high school (a CD player, a week at Magic Johnson’s basketball camp, even a trip to Europe) and I got in to the colleges I wanted.  I even got a convertible for my 16th birthday.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had formed a worldview where everything seemed to go my way, and that although “hard work” was required to achieve, my awareness of hard work was quite limited.