【文章內容簡介】 ow a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.I get it. I know what it39。s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn39。t always able to give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn39。t fit in.So I wasn39。t always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I39。m not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.But I was I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn39。t have a lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don39。t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there39。s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don39。t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren39。t right.But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life what you look like, where you e from, how much money you have, what you39。ve got going on at home none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That39。s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.Where you are right now doesn39。t have to determine where you39。ll end up. No one39。s written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.That39。s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn39。t speak English when she first started school. Neither of her parents had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a scholarship to Brown University is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.I39。m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who39。s fought brain cancer since he was three. He39。s had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer hundreds of extra hours to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He39。s headed to college this fall.And then there39。s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster h