Focus Is a Privilege

And not all of us have it

Photo by Badhon Ebrahim on Unsplash

From the beginning of Assata Richards’ time at the University of Houston in the early 1990s, she struggled to stay focused.

In addition to her schoolwork, Richards — who had just graduated in the top 10% of her high-school class — had a number of other urgent demands on her attention: She was working a low-wage part-time job, had bills to pay, food to get on…