In my 20 plus years of existence, I have learned two important lessons: (1) if you want to succeed, you have to play the game. (2) I am not good at playing the game. My life started out in the usual way, for a boy from a lower-middle class family in a Pakistani village. I grew up going to the village school and dreaming of joining the army. I never gave too much thought about the purpose of school or an education — I, like many of my classmates, never planned to study past the fifth or sixth grade.