Hillbilly Elegy

smacked the cake out of my hands and
moved on to his next victim. I never
grabbed the cake again.
There was an important lesson here,
but not one about food or self-control or
nutrition. If you’d told me that I’d react
to such an insult by cleaning up the cake
and heading back to my seat, I’d never
have believed you. The trials of my
youth instilled a debilitating self-doubt.
Instead of congratulating myself on
having overcome some obstacles, I
worried that I’d be overcome by the next
ones. Marine Corps boot camp, with its
barrage of challenges big and small,
began to teach me I had underestimated
myself.