Dan Wang: commitment

Transcript context

…What does that mean concretely? Ottawa is not only the federal capital of Canada, but it is also the drug capital of Canada. It is very easy to fall into a mischievous crowd when you’re over there. I was playing hooky from school a little bit too much, and running off, and trying to do whatever I found fun and not going to school. I never had good grades growing up. To this day, I will admit that I was academically challenged. I always just enjoyed taking a book to read in the park or something, rather than sitting in class. My main issue was that I played hooky a little bit too much, raised the ire of my parents. My parents threatened to give me to the army, and I laughed that off, because no parents ever do that. Then, my mom did it. She gave me to the Royal Canadian Army cadets, and they straightened me out. I was a very good army cadet. I was awarded recruit of the year. I was the fastest person in my regiment to be promoted to corporal. I was in the marching band, and I did excellent drill as well. Something I take away from some of the commanding officers whom I grew close to, they would tell me that the ethic of the army was that whatever you imagine is the most difficult thing, you should simply reconceptualize it as the easiest thing, and then you just do it. It turned out to have been a fairly robust lesson. How did you learn how to write so well?…

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