Publisher's Synopsis
When I went back to prison the second time, on a gun possession charge, I really began to work on myself. The first time, I fed myself some good food, but my habits remained poor. I never really worked on myself because I never held myself accountable for my actions. I pointed a finger at everybody else. I would say things like; "If my mother would have worked, maybe we wouldn't have been in the 'hood. Maybe I wouldn't have been with the people that I was around. If my father had been more available, we could have been a family. If we could just have been a family, if my mother and father could have worked it out, I wouldn't have been in this situation." I never really held myself accountable for doing what I did wrong. When I went back to the prison for the second time, I couldn't blame anybody else for that. I knew that it was all on me. I knew that I had messed up.I was in a really dark place, where I couldn't even look at myself. For the first six months, I couldn't stand to look at my reflection in the mirror. I was so ashamed of what I had become. I realized that I had so much potential; potential that I was wasting. I thought to myself, "You can think, you can move, yet you still choose to be ignorant. You still choose to be lazy and immature." That really hurt me. That was my breaking point. When I finally stood face-to-face with myself, the transformation began. I knew that I had to conquer myself. It was almost as if I was having an identity crisis. There is no way that you go from being a straight A student in school to "blocking" and robbing people. My father always told me, "You got to choose. You got to choose a side. You can go all in or you can go all out, but you can't do both." I always tried to do both. I thought that's what I had to do, in a weird, twisted way.The thing that shifted everything for me was a letter that I received from my Grandmother. She wrote: I pray for you every day, no matter the situation. I still believe that you are going to be the grandson that changes our family. That was my wake-up call. I didn't even believe in myself at the time and was close to giving up. That letter from my Grandmother gave me the strength I needed to get up and start to fight for my life.
