My father’s slashes forged resilience while my mother’s books tempered my intellect. Father was a simple man with no aspiration other than waking up and doing the day’s work. I resented him for that. Yet, I’ve grown to understand the guileless nature of providing and reproducing. But I was meant for more, I was driven to rise. I coupled the honesty of hard work and integrity and married it to empathy and humility. You must yearn to be a man of consequence, so that one day, you don’t just step into heaven, you stride in, with reverence.