The lesson that I drew from this at the time was that I should have tried harder. I should have taken school more seriously; I should have had a plan like everyone else. I still feel that way. But there’s an additional lesson that I get from it now: It’s never too late to start caring. My future was out there. It was just waiting for me to find it. And the challenge was not to give up on myself just because it seemed like everyone else was pulling ahead of me—and leaving me further and further behind in the months that followed. That’s the test that each of us faces in life: Can you fail and
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