A Brief Personal Statement.
6/10/08
Every so often someone will ask me, “You were just a criminal, what makes your story special?” And after a brief pause to catch my breath, I always tell them the same thing, “HEY, I could have easily been you. I SHOULD have been you.”
I was just an ordinary guy who should have led your typical, John Doe life. After college graduation, I wholly expected to spend the rest of my life working as a corporate shill, living in my non-descript tract home, gently seeding and watering a 401K, raising my family, and spending my spare moments at either the coffee pot or water cooler swapping stories about my favorite television shows and benign weekend adventures. I fully expected my biggest worries to revolve around what type of lawnmower I should buy or how to fix the squeaky garage door or which sports my kids should play this summer.
But none of that came to pass, because the unthinkable became thinkable. The improbable became probable. The things that we all thought would NEVER happen to us – like being gainfully employed by a drug cartel or being introduced to the hit man that was hired to kill my family or facing a possible 20 year jail sentence – happened to me. It was only after being battered by a hurricane of failure following my college graduation and facing the possible eviction of my pregnant fiancée, my (step) daughter, and myself around Christmas – with absolutely NO other options – that I found myself neck deep in the stench of organized crime. The shit had hit the fan and splattered all over my beautifully planned life.
My story is NOT unique because I made a mistake. Hell, anyone can do that. My story is special because I found the strength that I never knew I had to improvise, adapt, and overcome. I found the strength to try to live a normal life, support my wife & four kids, earn an MBA, and rebuild both my personal reputation and overall general attitude/outlook; all the while working in the dark underworld as a confidential informant for the DEA. I barely spent less than a year as a criminal, but I spent more than 5 years as an informant looking for justice, while praying for peace & happiness.
My story IS special because of my accomplishments and how I discovered the ability to succeed; in reality, the same thing that ANY OF US are capable of achieving under any circumstances. Let’s hope that your path to success is less troublesome, but regardless…the only obstacles in front of you are the ones that YOU let stop you.