Hey guys, Noah here.
I have never been good at anything in my entire life, mainly because I have never put in any effort.
Even in the areas where I had natural talent, as soon as that ran out so did my interests. For these reasons I don’t have anything, as far as success goes, to tell you about.
Most people that come to prison never stood a chance in the first place. That wasn’t me.
I guess you could say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I couldn’t stand the taste.
I spit it out.
My parents weren’t rich, but they were well off. They owned their own restaurant, and our household had plenty of love. I was always really good at meeting the minimum standard that was set, just enough to get by. My parents tried to teach me at a young age how to do the right thing and how to earn my way, but I wasn’t exactly interested in either. These are both reasons why I decided to traffic cocaine instead of taking one of the opportunities that presented itself.
My only true accomplishment is my college degree from the University of Minnesota, and even that was done for all the wrong reasons. I mean for crying out loud, my parents paid for everything, tuition, right down to the room and board. Hell, they even paid for some of the booze and drugs I consumed (not knowing of course), and I still graduated with $15,000 in student debt, and that number has only grown since I have been incarcerated.
What did I use the money for you might ask? Spring break, what else? The first loan was somewhere in the ballpark of $8,000 from My Rich Uncle, and it wasn’t Billy; it was a website offering loans somewhere around 23%. Well, I guess you could say my uncle gave me an all-expense-paid trip to South Padre Island because by the time I returned home the money was not only gone but my account was negative $680 and had no idea where it all went.
Well, I guess it’s time to call home. That weekend pretty much sums up my life, a spoiled kid with no capacity or capability to be responsible, while in the grips of addiction.
After college, my brother set me up with four interviews with different prestigious companies around the Minneapolis Metropolitan area, and I killed 3 of 4 interviews and picked my favorite, Automatic Data Processing. Within four months I was being laid off, I guess I wasn’t prepared. What I was prepared for was accepting the severance pay they were offering, it was around $5,000, and I already had an idea of what I could do with it.
Using my drug connections from years of use, I was eager to go back to the only thing I was ever good at, partying! It was May of 2009, only five months removed from my greatest accomplishment and even if you would have told me where my life was going to end up three years later, I would have laughed. I guess life was a joke, at least mine was.
So here we are again, life has a funny way of coming full circle.
I am about to get out of prison, it almost feels like I am graduating from college, and here is the silver spoon again. Except l am 34 instead of 18, but the opportunity is the same.
Am I ready to seize it this time? Or do I just piss it away again like every opportunity before it?
This time it’s with my sister and brother-in-law, with construction2style and resilience2reform.
Do I grow up, cut the shit, and finally make a difference? I guess only time will tell!
Thanks for listening,
Noah
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