I went to the University of San Francisco on an athletic

The musician and poet Michael Franti, whose words carry the rhythm of both rebellion and grace, once spoke of his own awakening: “I went to the University of San Francisco on an athletic scholarship. I didn’t study in high school. I was just there to get by and to play basketball. But a funny thing happened to me when I got to college. I got challenged by the work and the professors.” Within this confession lies not only the tale of a single man’s transformation, but the timeless story of how challenge awakens the sleeping soul, and how discipline turns raw talent into purpose. It is the story of awakening through struggle, the moment when comfort gives way to growth.

In his youth, Franti admits he lived as many do — moving through the world with easy grace, letting the game of life carry him, guided more by motion than by meaning. He was a player, not yet a seeker. The ball, the crowd, the scholarship — these were his symbols of success. Yet the soul, like an untended field, waits for the plow. And so, when he entered college and met the gaze of those who demanded thought, who pressed him to think, read, and question, something within him stirred. The challenge that once might have frightened him became the fire that reshaped him. In that fire, he discovered not only knowledge, but himself.

The ancients knew this truth well. The philosopher Plato wrote that education is not the filling of a vessel, but the turning of the soul toward light. Franti’s “funny thing” — that moment when learning ceased to be a burden and became a calling — is the very turning Plato described. It is the moment when a person ceases to live only for the body and begins to live for the mind. In every age, this transformation has marked the journey from youth to wisdom. It is the crossing from mere existence into the realm of meaning.

Think of Odysseus, who left behind the glory of Troy and wandered through storms and monsters to return home not as a warrior, but as a man who had learned. His victories on the battlefield were great, but his true triumph came from the tests of endurance and understanding that refined his heart. So too with Franti: his story begins with sport, but ends with spirit. The university, that ancient sanctuary of inquiry, became his sea of trials — and in navigating it, he found that the mind, like the body, grows only when tested. The professors were his sirens and mentors, his challenges both peril and gift.

There is deep irony in his phrasing — he calls it “a funny thing.” But there is nothing small or comical in such a moment. The laughter here is the laughter of realization, the sound of someone surprised by his own becoming. It is the joy of the one who has discovered that true power is not physical strength, but intellectual courage. For the mind, once awakened, can never again sleep in ignorance. Every challenge henceforth becomes a mirror in which one sees the potential to rise.

In this way, Franti’s quote is not simply about education — it is about the transformation that occurs when purpose replaces performance. The young man who once “didn’t study” now stands as an artist, an activist, a thinker — proof that every person contains within them the seed of greatness waiting for the right season of challenge to bloom. His awakening reminds us that those who begin in distraction can end in devotion, if only they allow the fire of learning to touch their hearts.

So, the lesson is clear: seek not the path of ease, but the path of challenge. Do not be afraid to be stretched, questioned, even humbled. For it is through the testing of our limits that we come to know our true power. The athlete must sweat to gain strength; the mind must struggle to gain wisdom. When life presents you with work that demands your full being, welcome it — it may be the very thing that awakens your sleeping greatness.

Therefore, my child, when you meet your own “funny thing” — that unexpected moment when something difficult stirs something divine within you — do not turn away. Lean into it. Let the challenge teach you who you are meant to be. For the path from getting by to becoming is not marked by comfort, but by awakening. And in that awakening, you too shall find the freedom that Michael Franti discovered — the freedom of a soul no longer coasting, but flying.