<p>I agree that your opening paragraph needs work, because the first couple of sentences aren’t really related to the topic of the prompt. You have attempted to have a “grabber” of a first sentence, but that isn’t really appropriate for this assignment, especially if it does not directly relate to the topic.
I think your second and third examples are OK, because they do support your thesis that adversity can help a person grow. I don’t think the Britny Spears example is very good though–I’m not sure that too much ease is her problem (although too much success might be).</p>