I grew up in a home where seldom was heard a discouraging word, and the skies were not cloudy all day. It’s true. My parents moved from places of constantly cloudy skies (Ohio and New York) out to a little spot of paradise on the border of three states and two countries called El Paso, Texas. It is actually one of the sunniest locations in the United States, with 302 days of full sunshine a year. This Ohio born boy and this New York born girl built a home for us in a tree covered neighborhood that had a pool and ditch banks for horses and room for a corral out in the backyard. My father, a salesman for Hills Brothers Coffee, was constantly studying and quoting books on motivation. Zig Ziglar’s “See You at the Top” and Dale Carnegie’s classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People” were prominently displayed on his work desk. He told each of us three kids that there was nothing we couldn’t do if we set our minds to it. We were very blessed, and lucky that way. I know that not everyone is so blessed, and lucky. One of my favorite lines from the book “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng involves a scene where two women, one white, one of color, are confronting one another about their different life outcomes. The white woman finally declares in self righteousness. “I made good choices!” The other woman replies “You made good choices because you HAD good choices.”