30 Things I Learned From Reinventing My Life After Prison

I almost gave up.

It was almost too hard, too scary, too much.

I was starting from zero and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

It would have been easier to stay put. I could have just stayed in the status quo, living an unremarkable life.

Rebuilding and reinventing my life after prison was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

I was consumed with shame for the choices I made that landed me in this situation in the first place. I hated myself for sacrificing so much for so little.

I was a couple million in debt and earning $12.00 an hour working the front desk of a gym. There were nights I had to skip dinner because I didn’t have enough money to pay for a metro card to get me to work and for the chicken cutlet I could buy for $1.50 (if the guy who sold them to me at that price was working. The other guy charged $2.50.)

It would have been easy to give up, to stay in the burnt ashes of my former life, and just exist. I questioned who I was to even entertain the idea of creating something.

But I couldn’t do that. I had a calling, a purpose, I had a dream:

To utilize my story as a tool to be of service to others.