On my thirteenth birthday, I was given a scrapbook of my preceding life filled with advice from every family member I am in contact with. I’ve heeded a metric crap ton of advice from my parents over the years, but I think my biggest influence as far as shaping who I am would have to be my older brother.

“Be aware of and accept the fact that you know next to nothing about the world and the things in it. Strive each day to fill the empty spaces in your mind with anything and everything you can get your hands on. Know life’s most precious commodity is time and you are rich in it. See to it your time is not spent on things unworthy or beneath you. You can choose to become any type of man you want, just bear in mind – the choice is yours and no one else’s.”

“Life is about minimizing regrets.”

My brother is eight years ahead of me, and a larger, wiser man than I will ever be.

John, or JJ as the folks call him, got the short end of the stick in this relationship. In the space of eight years, through an intense work ethic my parents received an insanely developed career path and the ability to be incredible parents. My parents accomplished this with little to no college education and little to no money; by all senses of the term, they were finished before they started. In a position to reprimand that for their kin, they have dumped an immeasurable amount of resources into my foundation as a young man. By all but beating me through life, they’ve given me a huge head start on life. I’m now going to an amazing college in California near my extended family.

When I think about myself fumbling through a massive campus filled with new hurdles, I reassure myself with the fact that none of us know really know what we are doing. Some of us just have a better head start than others.