Sometimes life gives you hard knocks so we can learn lessons we were otherwise too hard headed to learn. Some never learn the lessons and the hard knocks are repeated until they learn them. Some never learn and the end up bitterly disappointed in life, angry, and resentful. That’s the story of the ego. The irony of having hard knocks is that the lessons of setting our egos aside becomes the key to the door that leads to a life full of opportunities to contribute to our families and communities.