A buddy of mine recently shared an insightful quote with me that reminded me of my old friend Dave and many others I’ve come to know. It seems so obvious in its simplicity, yet sometimes hard to remember or embrace. It goes something like this, “If I had your complete life experience, I’d be you and if you had my complete life experience, you’d be me.” In AA we say basically the same thing, only with different words, “But for the grace of God go I.”

Dave and I went to high school together. I knew him through sports we played together until somewhere around our sophomore year. I knew Dave but honestly he was always a bit of a mystery and deep down he scared the hell out of me. He was a guy you did not want to get sideways with. After high school I went on a mission and Dave went to work. After my mission we somehow ended up on a city league basketball team together in 1987. On the surface we were opposites, not really 2 guys you think would “hangout” together. Yet here we were, playing city ball in Brigham together. After that season I got married, had a son and headed off to dental school. Dave took a different route through life but unbelievably our path’s would intersect 16 years later in 2003.

In January of 2003, after a few weeks in 23 hour lockdown at the prison in Draper, I hit the lottery. They made me the “laundry guy” and gave me my own cell on the first tier. One of my responsibility’s was to make bed rolls for new inmates. The bed roll had a thin blanket, a couple sheets and that was about it as far as I can remember. One night, pretty late, they popped my cell door and said, “Gardner, we need two bedrolls.” I got out of bed and headed to the end of the tier to the laundry closet. I put together a couple bed rolls then quickly made my way back to the other end of the block to the guard shack where a deputy and two inmates waited. As I handed these guys their bedrolls, one of them was really studying me so I sort of avoided his gaze. After a few seconds he says to me with a questioning tone, “Gardner,,,, is that you?” I looked up and said, “Peterson?” His eyes said exactly what he was thinking without saying a word. “Gardner, why are you here?” The guards rushed him off to his cell upstairs and I headed back to mine.

Over the next couple months Dave would stop by my cell and talk when his tier had their one hour out. We caught up on each other’s lives and I explained to him how I’d ended up at this point where I was living in a cage with him and all these other convicts. I’d eventually get out of prison about a year later never to return, while Dave would continue coming and going then coming back for years to come. I had a healthy support system, he didn’t. I had been shown the way to success by ALL my close friends and relatives, he had not. I didn’t have to live with and around family that would lead me astray, he did. I knew a better way and was helped back on that “better way” by everyone I knew. He had people helping him back on the road to destruction. Sure, he’d make some bad choices, but guess what, so would I. His bad choices snowballed, mine were corrected, in some part as a result of the forces around me all being positive. 9 times out of 10 I’d bet the forces around Dave were negative.

Our environments shape us, either positively or negatively. We ultimately choose our path but the environment we are raised in, informs and influences the choices we make. Next time you feel better than or superior to someone else who you think just “made some bad choices in life” remember, you don’t know shit about their life. Just humbly look heavenward and give thanks for all the goodness in your life that you had absolutely nothing to do with. “But for the grace of God go I.”

Dave is my friend. I mean one of my good friends who really knows me. I am Dave and Dave is me if you flip our life experience, I’m certain of it. I am honored he thinks of me as a brother and not as a silver spoon fed punk. I think back in high school he did, we were about as opposite as you can get. Now we are brothers. He sent me this text the other day…..”Happy 4th of July brother, Get ahold of me please!!!!!!” I called him right away. All he had to say was, “Just wanted you to know I’ve been thinking about you and wanted to hear your voice and tell you I love you brother.”

I love you too bro.