“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.” That quote, commonly attributed to Joyce Carol Oates, has always stayed with me.

Your opening line got me thinking because you have become a much different person from the one I thought I knew—and, to be honest, mostly avoided—in high school.

This simple paragraph could be the opening to a great story.

Your comment that “bad boys would ultimately fail in life” struck me because I think there’s a lot of truth in it. I have always thought of my younger self as a nerd who could fight. Like many young men of our generation, I suffered from what I jokingly call testosterone poisoning.

Somewhere near the end of high school, the brain fog begins to lift, and we slowly emerge as who we really are—and who we are going to become.

I always thought of myself as a nerd. I didn’t like sports and refused to spend time in the gym. I would much rather discuss a philosophical idea than a football game.

The school system largely gave up on me in the second grade. I have severe dyslexia, stuttered badly, spent nine years in speech therapy, and didn’t really begin reading until the seventh grade. What saved me, as you suggested, was my determination to get out of school and get on with my life.

The Boy Scouts taught me how to become a leader. Deep down, I’m a worker—a worker bee. I don’t work for the money as much as because I don’t do free time very well.

In high school I was tracked into shop classes, and because I wouldn’t play politics with the counseling staff, I spent at least three hours a day in the library. The librarian—I’m embarrassed to admit I no longer remember her name—encouraged me to read. One day she pointed to the encyclopedia and said, “That’s a great place to start.”

She changed my life.

I became a collector of ideas and facts. I’ll never be the smartest person in the room, butI try to be the best informed. At the end of many meetings, people eventually turn to me and ask, “Okay, what do you think?” Being a generalist has served me remarkably well.

I’ve always pictured life as a series of bell curves. You start on the left side and work your way upward. As you approach the top, the greatest danger is becoming afraid of falling down the other side. That fear makes people defensive and cautious—two things I’ve never wanted to become. So instead, I try to start over. I look for a new bell curve to climb.

Now, at 77 or 78, I’m looking for another new beginning. I’m not sure I’ve found it yet, but I enjoy helping people run for office, and I spend a lot of time working on civic projects. I’m trying to understand how government employees think and work because it’s so different from the business world I know.

In a strange way, I was fortunate not to have a traditional higher education when I was young. If I had, I might have learned the “right” way to do things. Instead, I wandered-down the road less traveled. I eventually arrived at many of the same places, but the journey was far more interesting and rewarding.

Sorry if I’m oversharing. I’ve realized I know very little about your story.

What’s your backstory?