Faustian Choice

One never knows when the lesson shirked will come back to bite you on the ass.

Every life experience must be grabbed with passion.  Learn and earn, if possible, from everything put in your path.

This advice is not just a nice-sounding bit of advice based on theory, it is premised by a very traumatic event in my life some 32 years ago.  That event could have put me in a federal penitentiary for a very long time.

I once heard a story of a would-be flight navigator who cheated on a major part of his written  exam.  His deceit went unnoticed for many years until an in-flight emergency left him at the helm.  As he was descending, he couldn’t recall the total sequence.  In desperation, he radioed ground control and half in tears told them that he drew a blank on how to land.  The calm ground control staff walked him through it and, by shear luck, he landed without a glitch.  He was fired on the spot.

Likewise, I was encouraged by my college teachers to keep a  journal, and my freshman teacher encouraged me to write with passion.  That lesson made me fall in love with English and when, in 1978, I stood at my arraignment and read my recognizance speech to the judge, he quickly reduced my substantial $500,000 baqil to a mere $500.

Unlike the navigator who fudged his way through, I was prepared adequately for the trauma I faced in the courtroom.

Let the judge tell the full story: