Alex, what do you want to do when you grow up?

Uhh I don’t know… maybe a computer engineer?

Ah, you’re so smart! Good choice.

But, if I’m honest I don’t know either if that’s a good choice, or the right choice…

who am I actually trying to become?

this person who thinks I’ll become an “engineer” because I heard they make a lot of money… and because people will respect me if I have that job…

okay…

…

I’m at home and my dad is making something.

Oh, it smells good!

Sometimes…

I’m at home thinking about what I want to do but then I simply think to myself…

honestly, I just love eating food… I look forward to it.

I’m in school and while I’m sitting in class I’m thinking:

Oh yes, my dad is making spaghetti bologna!

…

And so I would run home and spend my days just living for dinner at one point.

and honestly, at this point I completely forgot that maybe there was something else that I could be living for…

A few years earlier…

My mother comes home from work, I can hear her opening the door downstairs…

Oh, mom is home!

I throw my headphones on the keyboard, I’m still playing with my friends but I’ll be back soon.

I see my mom exhausted…

It’s dark outside… she left home at 04:30 am when it was dark and she’s back home now late in the evening…

I help her take off her jacket…

as her knees are swollen…

and her back hurts.

And I tell her:

Mammi! When I’m 18 I promise you will never have to work again!

I don’t know how I’ll do it but…

I need to help my mother!

…

I take a year of before starting high school…

I try to build up a YouTube gaming channel…

After struggling for a little over a year…

I start making money…

at 17, I made my first $10,000

at 19, $25,000

And eventually I had made almost $600,000.

…

My mother comes home…

Mammi, you don’t have to work…

Alex, are you serious! I’m so proud of you.

And the way she said it. And the way I felt. Her smile.

Was the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced

She hugs me.

And now, I can truly play games and just help my family…

…

So I’ve done it…

I retired my mother…

bought the house that we live in…

and can travel wherever and I can work from whenever as well.

And for many years…

it feels good.

One day I’m working again, making the same version of a video…

hundreds of videos have been posted…

slowly starting to run out of ideas…

So I have to start almost doing the same things over and over…

the channel has gone down to $10,000.

But a few months earlier, it was at $6,000 so I panicked and worked way harder.

…

How much more money should I make?

Should I try to go for $30,000?

I will need to work 8-12 hour days though…

playing the same game over and over.

I really do enjoy it, I do.

But something feels off.

I work twice as hard to earn half the amount of money that YouTube paid a few years ago.

How long can I sustain this and continue helping my mother and family?

Shouldn’t I start up another business?

…

I’m working for a couple hours… the deadline for the video is yet again done…

so I go back to bed and scroll YouTube shorts. Just waiting and procrastinating until I have to work on the next video.

I start feeling lost.

But nothing is wrong?

I have so much and I have my dream job.

My goal didn’t fail, it worked out. And that was the entire problem. I got everything that I wanted, and because of that I decided to myself that there was no other goal for me to really work on. The more money I make the longer I can keep my mother retired…

But I was only working towards a means of keeping the life I had, and I just did the bare minimum to make sure I had enough money…

I wasn’t really growing or learning anything.

I thought I was continuing to work towards the goal of keeping my mother retired.

But the goal of retiring my mother had already finished…

I’m not lost because my goal failed.

I’m lost because it worked.

After going for the one thing I never had, a relationship…

I focus everything to my girlfriend. Now, I believe I have everything I have in life.

I honestly don’t care that my channel is doing worse, I get to spend time with her!

…

we eventually break up and then I finally realize…

I have gotten absolutely everything in my life… a fit muscular body, I had a girlfriend and got to experience everything with that. I have all the money necessary, my mother will be fine.

Okay, let me actually start up something on the side, I like to teach and help people.

I will start to play the piano again after years of putting it off…

I will actually read for once, that book Think and Grow Rich my mother gave me when I was like 12…

And I will be more consistent with going to the gym…

And also… If I earn a lot more money I will get more girls… I should go to the library and read a lot more, that’s where the smart girls are.

…

I’m in the library reading Atomic Habits…

I hear footsteps…

I look up

Oh my god, could that be my next girlfriend?

Oh no, oh no.

Wait, where was I in this book?

I’m sitting as close as possible to the entrance of the library, because there all kinds of women will be able to see me reading…

I hear light, calm footsteps. Another potential soulmate?

I look up…

It’s a full grown dude.

Ah shit, let me just read…

Wait where was I again?

but after doing this for a few months…

something changed…

…

I’m sitting in the library reading again, and somebody walks by.

But oh my god, I’m learning so much about business…

psychology…

the way people work…

meaning…

I read Man’s Search for Meaning.

All the ways of purpose, how looking forward to something in the future makes us endure the present.

And I ask myself:

What am I really supposed to do with my life now?

I’m constantly thinking about the question…

like one day I will get an epiphany…

oh my god! I found the meaning of life!

And that now that I know, I will forever have the meaning of my life…

…

That never really happened…

I still don’t know what the meaning of life is.

But while I’m sitting there thinking really hard about the question.

I do realize that maybe just taking the question seriously was enough for me to start changing…

I finish work on my gaming channel yet another day… I could just go and watch YouTube shorts and movies and procrastinate until the next video…

but instead. I want to play the piano. So I sit down and decide to practice for only 45 minutes a day…

No pressure to complete anything, just having fun.

and everyday I see myself slowly progressing, learning better pieces. Understanding patterns and becoming proud of myself whenever I learn an “impossible” piece. Know I can conquer harder and harder pieces.

Then afterwards I sit down, listen to relaxing music and read for 30 minutes a day…

Oh my god! This bit of human psychology is so insane! I will write this down and synthesize so other people can understand themselves better

Then I go to the gym…

I start talking to people there… learning all about them, and training to actually enjoy the process of the gym rather than just training to “have it over with”

And I met a guy like me… dedicated, focused and we talk about the meaning of life together and how to live a good life.

…

All of the sudden I’m doing more things than…

Yet I’m not forcing myself to do any of these things, I just did them for the fun of it.

A few years ago I would play video games for 12 hours a day and not think of anything else, let alone my real life.

Now I’m playing games while working and I’m thinking:

Okay, I want to do something else…

I can barely work for 4 hours while playing games…

I want to read, play the piano and go to the gym…

go for my short walks…

talk to my mother for 15 minutes spontaneously…

I don’t do everything with a deep purpose…

Sometimes I eat dinner and think:

Damn, this dinner is soo good, my mother’s a master chef.

And I start wondering why every part of my life needs the enormous question…

Why does the piano matter to me?

Why should I read?

I used to think everything that didn’t progress my goals was useless…

If I can work… why would I take meaning in doing as useless as playing the piano? I could make more money.

Why would I need friends? I hate going for stuff, I just want to go home and work on business.

My whole meaning in life, especially as a gaming YouTuber came from how much money I could earn…

how much I could provide…

but eventually there were some things that gave me more meaning than anything I could’ve thought…

Almost a year ago, while I was still struggling to figure out what to do…

I get an email from someone who watches my gaming videos…

They tell me something along the lines of:

“Hello, I’m from Brazil… you know, I’ve been feeling really down lately and just watching your videos has helped me so much. You don’t know how much you’ve helped me go to sleep and forget life. So thank you for everything!”

Immediately I start to cry…

I never knew… that my silly little gaming videos could help someone bring so much value and peace…

I’ve gotten millions of views…

earned more money than I could ever think off…

gotten enough subscribers for YouTube to reward me with a plaque.

Yet somehow, none of that compared as much as one single person telling me:

You’ve helped me.

I realized just how separated I was from my audience…

how much I love talking to people…

want to teach and understand myself and other…

…

Now I’m making these stories…

I look back at small and seemingly ordinary things in life that should have absolute zero meaning….

why did I hide from guests so much?

Why did I care so much about what other people thought about me?

Why did I think and become the way I am in life?

Or, why did I wipe my ass with a cardboard roll because I was too embarrassed to ask for more?

And the more I try to understand myself… the more I can help others understand themselves better.

And now, I read comments like:

Wow, I did this too.

I never thought about it that way.

Thank you so much for this message.

And I think I’ve found a business that now aligns well with who I am as a person…

not just telling stories within video games…

but helping people understand themselves through stories too…

and that may or may not give me meaning for a long time.

But this gives me something to look forward to.

Everything I notice in my life becomes meaning for others.

Everything I read in my books becomes a way to help others.

Every time I think of another idea that I realize will make others understand themselves better…

So this is part of meaning in my life right now…

but I know that even this life won’t give me purpose forever.

In a few years from now, I may or may not feel like:

Okay, I feel done with the piano… instead of giving it up, let me try the violin.

I don’t like training at the gym anymore, instead of quitting let me try running.

I don’t like making videos anymore… but I still like helping people understand themselves… let me make a movie, write books or do podcasts.

Maybe there is some completely different way of helping people that I can only learn once I’ve lived long enough…

and knowing that maybe I don’t know…

doesn’t scare me anymore.

Because I already had my greatest purpose in life end… and once it was finished…

life kept on going.

So if I one day any of the things in my life start feeling meaningless or boring…

I will probably find something else.

Because the things that bring meaning to my life, will change as I keep on living…

and as long as I’m alive.

I’m going to keep on changing..

keep learning new things…

meet new people I could never imagine…

and probably enjoy things in the future I would never do today.

Because it would be strange if the answer I had to the purpose of life, at 21. Explained the purpose of my life for the rest of my life.

This is the biggest things that confused me…

I thought the meaning of life…

was one huge thing.

The reason that I’m alive. The thing I’m supposed to spend every waking hour of my life focused on.

But I think meaning is smaller than that…

some meaning like helping my mother can give me purpose for years…

something as simple as wanting to live for the the dinner can give me purpose for the next few hours…

And nothing about these things last forever…

but they make me want to really live the life I have… Now.

I still don’t know what the meaning of life is…

If somebody were to ask me:

Why are you here?

I don’t have a real answer, only something abstract…

I don’t know.

I thought meaning was something that was found.

A permanent solution to all my problems, if I could think hard enough to find it… I could finally stop worrying about that question for the rest of my life.

But life never worked that way…

I care about something and start moving towards it…

sometimes I can reach it…

and sometimes I stop moving towards it.

And then… something else pops up in life that I can start caring towards.

I haven’t found the meaning of my life.

I’ve just built a life that keeps giving me meaningful reasons to live it.

And so I look at the reserves of toilet paper…
Oh no…

Now usually I would just ask for more, but I’m to embarrassed because I would be admitting to my family that I’m sitting here taking a shit.

So instead I look at the naked cardboard roll…

And somehow decide:

This will work…

So I wipe my ass with the empty cardboard roll and flush it down the toilet.

I don’t think much about it and go about my day.

…

I walk in on my mother, she is looking down the toilet…

What is she doing?

Oh my god, she’s pulling out something out of the toilet…

oh no! I was the one who did it!

But instead of admitting it I just watch and go back, maybe she thinks someone else did it…

From that point onward, I just opened the door lightly and always asked for more toilet paper, even if it smelled like complete shit.

And this wasn’t even the weirdest relationship I had with shitting…

I'm at my friends house and I feel a sudden urge to take a shit…

but I don’t want to poop here… I want to go home and do it. Because at home it’s way more comfortable and I know how clean the toilet is.

Okay, let me hold it in… I’m sleeping over but I can hold it until I go home tomorrow.

…

I wake up and all of the sudden now I really need to poop, but I know I’ll be home in a few hours…

I say goodbye to my friend, get home and immediately unload on the toilet…

And I do this everywhere…

if I’m at school, I almost never poop there…

at a friend’s house? Little bit better but I still wait…

…

I’m at a football trip with my team and we have to stay there for 4 days.

Now obviously I will have to shit in that time, but for now I ignore it…

the days pass by and I’m playing in the heat of summer…

I have no problem going to pee, but…

now I feel like taking a shit.

…

I’m on my way home from the football trip, my dad has picked me up!

Only problem is that we’re 2 hours away from home…

and I haven’t taken a shit for 4 days straight…

why… why can’t I just be comfortable pooping normally?

Is there something wrong with me?

…

I get home and I absolutely demolish the toilet…

didn’t stand a chance…

the turds are so big that the splash from the toilet water reaches my ass cheeks…

it was disgusting to feel the cold water on my ass, But I’ve never felt more relieved.

…

It’s strange because I could pee basically anywhere.

Apparently taking a shit anywhere except home felt way too personal.

I’m taking a shit and just sitting longer than I should on my phone…

and I’m about to wipe…

but all of the sudden…

Door opens

It’s my dad!

He looks at his phone too, but then he looks at me…

I stare back at home from my phone…

and then he closes the door…

…

What the fuck was that!

How didn’t he see I was in here!

Oh wait… he was on his phone…

and I forgot to lock the damn door…

…

I need to pee badly so I walk to the bathroom with my phone in hand…

I open the bathroom door, it’s unlocked…

I look up…

dad

sitting there on the toilet is my dad on his phone.

I don’t say anything, he looks at me… I look at him, and I close the door.

And I just laugh.

What the hell!

Haha that was so funny…

But why was my dad taking a shit funny…
but me taking a shit felt like classified information?

I’m taking a shit again and I’m on my phone…

just watching YouTube shorts… I want to wipe but wiping will take a minute. Let me just finish watching a few shorts.

10 minutes later

Oh my legs are sooo stiff…

oh my god, my blood from there is gone…

okay let me quickly start to wipe.

…

Instead of just taking a shit for 2 minutes, I stay on my phone just because I can’t be bored for that period of time.

And then I realized, I was willing to let my legs go stiff and disgustingly hated wiping my ass after waiting for so long…

because now it would be cold when I’m wiping my ass…

instead of the warm asshole if I had just done it in 2 minutes.

…

Eventually I got comfortable enough pooping that I developed the opposite problem.

Now I was TOO comfortable.

maybe I’m getting too comfortable writing this too…

I’m in bed thinking about video ideas…

I don’t know what video to make next…

what if I don’t make a good video and I waste time?

What if I start losing money, my family depends on me…

Oh no.

I’m starting to overthink to much, ah shit…

now my stomach is starting to really hurt…

I need to stop worrying about the next video. Let me get rid of this stomach pain.

Sharp pain.

PLEASE can you stop hurting stomach, go away… go away!

But it doesn’t work. Alright let me just go to the toilet to be safe…

I immediately get diarrhea…

I throw my shirt off while taking this shit. It’s starting to hurt so much and I’m getting really warm.

With the shirt off I get reduced heat generation.

…

A few hours later I’m sitting in bed and my stomach is fine…

but now my ass starts to really hurt.

Oh my god, it’s swollen isn’t it?

It just gets worse and worse…

the next day I wake up with the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt.

I can’t move… my whole asshole is completely swollen.

I’ve gotten hemorrhoids.

And how the hell will I do my work now? Oh no I can’t make the next video…

I’m sitting in bed with my legs stretched like a starfish…

because if I close my legs I squeeze my ass, and that was excruciating.

…

2 days later it’s so bad I can’t be asked to be in bed like this…

I would sit with my family at dinner with a face that was completely straight…

but underneath I was sitting on my ass, so I had the worst pain imaginable.

And I would walk like I had held in a shit for a thousands years…

So now, I really worry about myself and my work. I have to get medicine.

…

Mother, I’ve been in so much pain. I think I have hemorrhoids.

Oh my god Alex! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?

Yeah, I guess I was too embarrassed…

She gets me the medicine and eventually I start to get better…

I was anxious.
My stomach was a mess.
I kept going to the bathroom.
A few days later I had some of the worst hemorrhoid pain of my life.

I had always thought emotions happened in my head.

Apparently my ass had other opinions.

When I was a kid, I would rather wipe my ass with cardboard than tell my mom I was taking a shit.

Years later, I’m lying in bed like a starfish telling her my ass is swollen because I need medicine.

Embarrassment had gone from making me wipe with cardboard…
to making me wait two days to ask for help.

I don’t think poop made me wiser.

But somewhere between those two moments…

I stopped treating being human like something I had to hide.

At school and around strangers I was really quiet…

my parents would tell everyone I was shy.

And I thought I was shy too.

But then I would go home…

close my bedroom door…

put my headphones on…

and somehow become completely different.

I would scream at games…

swear at random people online…

talk to people for the entire day…

and some of the friends I made there honestly felt closer to me than the friends I saw in real life.

So for a long time I basically thought:

Yeah… this is probably the real me.

I’m just too scared to act like this in real life.

I’m sitting with guests for dinner…

answering their questions and pretending to be talkative and all.

my parents would usually tell people I’m shy and quiet.

Okay, I thank my parents for the dinner and say goodbye to the guests, I run upstairs…

and after closing my door, I immediately hop on my games…

…

I’m just playing games with my friends, and sometimes I get genuinely scared…

WOAAHH

And I don’t think much about it…

I can barely scream at school or anywhere else so I’m just letting out all my energy.

But then, out of nowhere…

Light knock

My mother opens the door:

Alex, could you please tone it down? I’m trying to sleep.

Oh my god, yes. Sorry mother.

And I’m thinking to myself:
Damn, I’m just having fun. But of course I need to be quiet… as always…
But my mother really needs to sleep.

I start whispering to my friends instead and as they’re screaming and having fun.

I just want to scream again.

…

Another time I’m in my apartment and forget to be quiet, and I’m screaming my lungs out and rolling on my chair whilst playing games…

and all of the sudden I hear from underneath me:

BANG, BANG, BANG

OH SHIT. What was that?!

Oh my god, it’s my downstairs neighbor…

I’ve been screaming so much that I forgot somebody underneath me is literally trying to sleep.

And it’s midnight.

I really need to be quiet, holy shit…

It’s winter break, and I’m on an online platform called Discord.

And I’m just talking to people on there, and playing games…

Whenever I’m playing a game and someone tells me I’m bad:

Shut the fuck up. Nobody likes you!

You’re a loser.

Haha what an idiot he is.

…

And whenever I used to lose really badly

You’re a fucking idiot.

You got so lucky!

I would talk to my friends for hours, I spent 14 hours some days just playing this game called Rust.

And when my friends and I met people on there…

I would insult people and just copy what my friends were doing.

Nobody knew how I looked like, nobody knew me in real life.

…

I’m talking to people online and they say something I don’t like…

Now in real life, if I don’t like somebody, I talk back to them with a smile, slowly distancing myself but saying everything they want to hear. Until I’m eventually out of their sight.

But online, I just tell them they’re a completely idiot…

and I block them.

My blocked list was so long I had to scroll down for a minute to get to the end.

…

The day after I’ve berated people and screamed my lungs out, I’m in school with my real friend group. And I’m just on my phone….

my friends are laughing and chatting, but I’m just sitting with them being the quietest kid in the friend group.

I’m the smallest kid as well, so I don’t want to say anything wrong to absolutely anyone. Because I know if I curse at someone like I do online, I won’t be safe…

I meet a guy in a game I play…

and we instantly connect. We talk about real life, scream together in the games and insult people together…

it’s almost like it’s me and him against the rest of the world.

Because with him, I can show him the part of me that isn’t quiet…

So I’m talking to him constantly…

and we don’t even know each other’s appearances. So I know that he isn’t just talking to me for external reasons. He wanted to talk to me.

He doesn’t know I’m the smallest kid…

the quietest kid…

or the kid who pretends to be someone else in real life.

We spend 14 hour days on the weekends just playing together. And after a few months of playing together, he becomes one of my closest friends…

yet, he lives further away from me than any of my real life friends.

…

Me and my friends are sitting in school together on some couches. They mostly talk to each other and I join in every now and then…

But I’m not really interested in what most of my friends are saying…

I’m talking to my friends online, just chatting with them. Telling them the insane stuff were going to do tonight after school…

Can’t wait to go home and swear…

scream my lungs out…

and talk about life…

I just want to go home and play games.

And when I think about all of this now…

I don’t really know if saying the online version was the “real me” makes sense anymore.

Because yeah…

online I definitely showed parts of myself that I was too scared to show in real life.

I screamed.

I talked constantly.

I told people about my life.

I made friends with people I had never even seen before.

And I think that part really was me.

But then I also think about all the people I insulted…

all the people I blocked because I didn’t like one thing they said…

and all the things I would say online that I would never say if that person was actually standing in front of me.

Was that also the real me?

…

Maybe.

It was still me doing it.

But I don’t know if being able to do whatever I wanted automatically made me more myself.

In real life I was scared of what people thought about me…

so I hid a lot.

Online I didn’t have to care as much because if someone hated me…

I could literally just block them.

And disappear.

…

So maybe I wasn’t taking off my mask when I went online.

Maybe I just had a different one there.

I think both versions were me.

The quiet kid at school was me.

The kid screaming at his computer was me.

The person talking about life with someone he had never met was me.

And unfortunately…

the kid calling random people fucking idiots was me too.

…

I used to think being myself meant removing everything that was holding me back.

But now I’m not really sure.

Because sometimes what was holding me back was fear.

And sometimes…

it was just remembering that there was another person on the other side.

Around my parents friends, I was quiet and polite.

Around my friends, I was loud, weird, and wrestling with them.

Around my girlfriend, I even lied about myself just so we could seem more similar.

For years, I never really questioned it.

Until eventually I started wondering:

Which version of me was actually real?

My parents tell me:

Alex, we have some friends coming over for dinner.

and immediately I say okay… but then just go to my room and lock myself in.

Damn, now I have to eat dinner when they’re gone. I don’t want to go down and meet new people.

So I start playing games… and a while later I hear the front door open…

I continue playing my video games, hopefully I can survive until I can eat alone.

…

It’s been many hours and my stomach…

RUMBLE

Damn… I want to eat…

But if I go downstairs, I will have to greet them all… and my parents probably told them to that I was a little bit shy…

I don’t like talking to people, I know when I go down there I will have to talk.

…

I hear laughter and loud talking as I descend the stairs, I already know what will be said…

Ah there he is! Finally came out of his room! Welcome.

Yeah… finally came out of my room.

I try to be polite and just smile and say hello to everyone…

I just want to eat. But now I know they will probably ask a million questions about my life…

but I really don’t want to talk, I barely know all the answers to my life myself…

Yeah Alex, so what do you want to become?

Uhh yeah I think I want to do computer engineering…

Then she tells my mother:

Wow, you have such a smart kid!

Good, now they think I’m smart and I’m talking a lot too…

…

The conversations with all the guests were always fine…

Yet, the next time we had guests over…

I would hide in my room and do the same thing over and over…

…

The weird thing was…

I was completely okay telling myself:

I’m shy.

That was just who I was.

But I hated other people actually seeing me that way.

So I would spend hours hiding upstairs…

then finally come downstairs and try to prove I wasn’t the shy kid I had just spent the entire evening being.

I’m with my friends in school… we have a break between classes…

I start to grab my friends and wrestle with them, as always.

I say weird stuff and scream, but we’re all laughing…

but then they say:

Alex, you’re so weird haha.

…

Most of the time I just took it as a joke. But somehow today, I just wanted to be normal. I was always the weirdest kid so why don’t I do it.

The next break comes…

I’m with my friends and we’re just staring at our phones…

No wrestling…

No funny jokes…

No banter…

…

And the next day, I completely forget to be normal…

I’m back to just wrestling and being an expressive kid…

and my friends would call me weird every once in a while. And the cycle would repeat itself.

But which version of myself was really me?

With my friends, I could only keep the “normal” version of myself alive for a few hours.

With my girlfriend…

I took it much further.

My girlfriend sees a YouTube short…

it’s a couple riding together on a motorbike…

Wow, you see this Alex! Couple goals.

…

Normally I would just laugh it off with her… but maybe, maybe I can tell her that we can do that…

that I once rode on a motorbike with my father…

Yeah, we should do that too! I rode with my father, we should ride together one day!

and immediately I regret the words coming out of my mouth.

I don’t want to ride a motorbike, I never even rode with my father.

Wait, you really want to Alex! Wow I’m so excited!

…

Oh okay, wow she actually is so excited now!

Okay, maybe I should just try to become interested in bikes, I mean I could become someone to ride motorbikes…

…

A few weeks later me and her are looking at motorbike equipment…

I try on helmets, and gloves and all the kinds…

Hmm yeah, this fits me I guess…

I look over to my girlfriend…

Oh my god Alex! this helmet is so cute!

Look at these gloves!

Wow I know exactly what this is!

I’ve never seen her as excited as when she’s dreaming about these things…

I really have to become someone to ride with her…

…

My girlfriend asks me:

Alex, did you really ride with your father?

And I say:

Yes yes I did as a child yeah…

But when I asked my father…

No, we’ve never ridden before on the motorbike

Why did I ask my father? I knew it was a lie.

So I told my girlfriend…

Ah, maybe it was with someone else. I’ve never ridden with my father…

Wait, so you lied?

Oh no no, I think I forgot, but yeah I’ve ridden on a motorbike before…

…

And even when she caught me…

my brain found a technicality.

I had ridden a motorbike once when I was maybe ten.

So now I could tell myself:

See? I didn’t really lie.

…

I did.

I told her I rode with my father because I wanted us to have something in common.

And instead of admitting that, I kept changing the story so I could still feel like I was being honest.

…

My girlfriend of course gets annoyed…

and then I eventually say…

Yeah I don’t know… I will try to ride a motorbike but if I don’t like it then sorry but I can’t ride with you as a couple.

And she says:

I understand, we don’t need to have the same interests and all. You do whatever you feel like.

Wait…

She was completely fine with the version of me I was trying so hard to hide.

Okay…

I land in South Africa with my father and for the first time…

I’m really in a place on the opposite side of the world, nobody knows me…

nobody cares who I am. I will just enjoy this vacation…

So I meet a few people working at an ice cream stand…

They look happy and open. Let me try to say something outside of my ice cream order…

Hello, such a lovely country you have here!

I just wanted to say something nice…

…

but eventually I was just enjoying talking so much to the ladies there…

that I forgot completely that I was supposed to swim at the lagoon.

I tell them:

Oh it was so nice talking!

And eventually go down to swim…

…

The rest of the trip I went from keeping my head down most of the time to making eye contact first, like the people here…

and just talking about life…

…

My father calls my mother:

Yeah, Alex is just so talkative! He is really enjoying it here!

I agree with him, I really do like talking to everyone.

People were starting to smile the moment I came up to them.

I’ve never had that before…

and by the end I had talked more in a few weeks of my vacation…

than a few years back at home.

…

I’m walking to the gym…

I walk past people, and I look them in the eye and smile.

For the first time, I notice some of them looking back and saying

Hello!

Wow, I used to only keep my head down and never even bothered to look up and see if anyone here wanted to talk…

The world hadn’t suddenly become friendlier.

I had finally started giving it something to respond to.

Looking back…

I spent years trying to figure out which version of me was the real one.

The quiet kid around my parents friends.

The weird kid wrestling with his friends.

The boyfriend trying to become interested in something because his girlfriend loved it.

The guy in South Africa talking to strangers for hours.

And I think I was asking the wrong question.

They were all me.

Of course different people bring out different parts of us.

The problem wasn’t that I had different versions of myself.

The problem was how often fear decided which version was allowed to come out.

I was afraid of being seen as shy.

Afraid of being too weird.

Afraid that being different would make people feel less connected to me.

And the more I tried to control how people saw me…

the harder it became for them to actually see me.

South Africa was different.

Nobody there knew who I was supposed to be.

So for once, I wasn’t constantly deciding who I should become before I spoke.

I just talked.

I still act differently around different people.

I think everyone does.

But now I try to notice when I’m changing naturally…

and when I’m changing because I’m afraid of what someone will think.

Because maybe being yourself doesn’t mean acting exactly the same around everyone.

Maybe it means not being afraid of which parts of yourself they get to see.

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Usually I would do the same but I get bored and just pull out a piece of paper.

And I start to write a few numbers…

1… 2… 3…

100… 101… 102…

300… 301… 302…

507… 508… 509…

Woah, I have no more space left on the page… guess I’ll stop.

Then my teacher comes up to me…

Alex! What have you done!

I look at her, and I start to cry.

Why is she yelling at me?

My mother, who also works there comes up to the teacher and asks her what happened…

Oh I’m sorry, it’s just that in my 21 years of teaching…

I’ve never seen anyone do something like what your son has done!

My mother laughs it off and I still don’t understand…

what was so impressive about what I’d done…

But from that moment on, my mother would keep telling me I’m special and smart.

…

For most of my childhood, I thought school was slowly revealing who I was.

A good grade meant I was smart.

Struggling to study meant I was lazy.

Sitting alone meant I was shy.

Hating an essay meant I hated writing.

I never really questioned those conclusions.

They just became things I knew about myself.

But as I got older, life started giving me completely different evidence.

I could barely study for ten minutes…
but I could practice piano for seven hours.

I thought I hated writing…
until writing became one of the most important skills in my business.

I thought I was naturally quiet…
until I traveled somewhere nobody knew me and couldn’t stop talking to people.

And eventually I started wondering:

How much of who I thought I was came from me…

and how much came from what happened to me at school?

I confused performance with intelligence

I’m sitting in school as a teenager, I can barely study for 10 minutes at home and at school I almost fall asleep trying to listen to the teachers…

Why can’t I pay attention?

All the other students seem so focused…

And I hear they study for hours at home…

…

I’m in a test and it’s about halfway done…

I hear a chair being pulled back… the scratch against the stone floor…

and I look up, of course it’s the smart kid…

How are they so quick! I’ve barely gone through this…

Damn, why can’t I be quick and smart like them…

…

Maybe I just can’t be great at anything, I’m simply too lazy and stupid.

…

But school never sat me down and told me who I was.

It gave me grades, assignments, classmates, deadlines and expectations.

I was the one who kept turning all of them into evidence about myself.

My teacher is talking about something in front of class…

but I have no idea what the teacher is talking about…

I’m fully listening but I couldn’t tell you what he talked about 10 seconds ago…

…

Any questions, anyone?

Should I raise my hand?

I look around… nobody else is raising theirs…

Damn, am I the only one who doesn’t get it?

Am I just the stupid one?

But I really want to improve my grades and become better at school…

But if I raise my hands then everyone else will think I’m the only stupid one…

So I don’t raise them…

…

Another student raises their hand…

I look over at him, and then I hear the words leaving his mouth…

Oh thank god, that’s exactly what I wanted to understand too!

The teacher explains it, I understand it now…

but the strange thing is I don’t think the student who raised their hand is stupid…

the strange part is that the smartest kids were the ones who would raise their hands most often.

Maybe I didn’t think I was stupid because I didn’t raise my hand.

I wasn’t scared that asking the question would make me stupid.

I was scared it would show everyone else that I was stupid.

So I stayed quiet.

And staying quiet kept me ignorant longer.

I thought asking questions would expose my ignorance. But staying quiet was what kept me ignorant longer.

Then I started confusing the scoreboard with the game

COVID has arrived and we are told to stay at home…

from now on most of our school days will be performed from home…

But then when it comes time for physical education, instead of me thinking I was saved, our teacher still had assignments for us. Most of the times it was simple research about human health and muscle functions.

But this time our teacher wanted us to go for a walk, and send him a screenshot of the steps we took.

Alright, it’s nice weather outside, sunny and not too cold… the winter is over so perhaps I should enjoy the spring and summer and actually work out.

I walk to the hallway…

Ah, wait…

If I only have to send a screenshot of my steps… then that means I could just alter the number on the screen…

…

I’ve been playing games for the past hour.

Oh shit, I have to Photoshop my steps so I can send it in to my teacher…

I use an app where there aren’t many analytics to debunk my fake evidence…

and there we go.

Nice, now I can spend physical education just playing video games.

I mean, I technically completed the assignment?

…

A few days later, the teacher accepts it…

Good job, Alex. You’re a good kid and student!

oh my god, I actually got away with it!

I’m sitting in a history test…

but god dammit, I forgot to study for this test. So instead I quickly got the cheat sheet…

and I place it right under my ass, all I have to do is look down and act as if I’m thinking or writing and I can read it.

Perfect!

…

Okay, I’m more than halfway done with this test, I got this…

Classroom dead silent

I try to look down at the answers…

but damn my ass is so big I’m covering some parts of the text…

okay let me just adjust myself a little bit…

CRINKLE

Everybody looks my way…

Oh my fucking god, you have to be kidding me…

WHY DID THE PAPER MAKE SUCH A LOUD SOUND…

I keep a straight face…

the teacher walks over to me,

Alex, what do you have under there?

I feel the urge to lie… but honestly I’m too lazy to make an excuse, this was my fault completely.

I hand in the paper… and all my classmates laugh at me.

…

The test is done, everybody is leaving. And as I’m almost rushing out with my steps…

Alex, I need you to stay behind.

Classmates giggle

…

It’s dead silent between me and my teacher…

Alex, I know you cheated on the test and I will fail you… but I’m giving you a chance to redo it. Okay?

Yes Maria, thank you so much and I’m so sorry.

But my father works as a teacher in the same school as her, my life is over if she tells him that his son had cheated on a test…

But in the end… she never told him…

I completed the test a few weeks later…

and this time I didn’t even think to cheat…

I actually studied for a long time… and did well.

…

Grades instead of learning.

Steps instead of health.

Completing instead of understanding.

I got very good at figuring out how to win the scoreboard.

I just didn’t always notice when I had stopped playing the game.

I thought I hated writing

I’m supposed to write a long essay for my English assignment…

I have a deadline of a few weeks, but oh my god how boring it is.

Oh well, wait…

if I only have to write a certain amount of pages, that means I can just stretch ideas out.

Okay, let me get started…

Furthermore, I think that I this topic is obviously extraordinary. Because the premise of it is

I write as many advanced words as possible to extend the character length, and try to drag out the sentences so the page fills quicker…

then I can play video games after…

I don’t want to do school assignments at home when I can play all day.

…

I get a B on the assignment and get an A in English…

I barely tried, and I still did well…

Thank god, because English is a lot of writing…

and writing is so incredibly boring, I hate it.

…

Years later, I’m building my gaming channel to retire my mother who was working endlessly at her 9-5 job.

And as I’m studying thumbnails and video ideas…

I read about a lot of related subjects…

I have a whole notepad filled with ideas, I can’t stop writing…

If I don’t catch up with my competitors, they’re going to outperform me.

So I write as much as possible…

Titles are writing.

Hooks are writing.

Copy writing is writing.

Ideation is partly writing.

Then when I publish a video, I get data about how the video did and the idea…

Ah the video did quite well, okay this idea is working quite well. Let me write down why it worked and try to really understand it.

I have to write clearer titles, ideate and write a good thumbnail template, so that my viewers also understand everything way better.

…

Wow, I’m enjoying this, writing and reading about different subjects for this goal.

…

School taught me to write until I reached the required length. Business taught me to write until someone understood.

School also told me where I belonged

School didn’t only give me academic scoreboards.

It gave me social ones too.

Who had friends.
Who sat alone.
Who talked.
Who was quiet.
Who belonged.

…

I’m about to enter the school cafeteria…

Oh god, I have to find a table to sit at…

I grab my food and immediately look around…

Ah there, an empty table

…

I sit there not looking up, eating alone.

Other kids are probably looking at me like I’m a loser, sitting all alone here.

But…

I used to have my best friend group that I used to sit with and eat. It was so easy to eat at the school cafeteria…

Why am I so alone?

I lost almost all my friends here…

I feel lonely.

…

Eventually, after sitting alone during recces and school lunches so many times…

I decide to just talk to a bunch of boys in my class…

they seemed genuinely good, but I just didn’t want to feel alone.

So now, I’m eating together with them always.

Except now I’m always with my friends during free time.

It was normal to hang with friends during the break…

But I never wanted to feel or be alone, or to even be seen alone at school.

…

I solved the visible problem.

I wasn’t eating alone anymore.

But I was still the quietest person in the group.

So instead of questioning why I felt uncomfortable around people, I gave myself an explanation:

I’m just shy.

And once I had the label, I stopped needing to investigate it.

Then life gave me different tests

My mother hears a faint tune coming from downstairs…

she comes down with her bathrobe and I see her with tired eyes walking up to me…

Alex, wow. You’re still practicing on the piano! But it’s midnight, you should rest…

I glance over at the clock, it really is midnight.

You’re so smart Alex! I always knew you were special…

…

I had studied on the piano ever since coming home from school. Because I decided to get a better grade in music, just for fun.

So after almost learning a whole piece and studying for 7 hours…

I ended up playing it for my teacher…

Wow Alex, you’re so talented and smart!

…

I go to the mailbox to get my report card for the term…

I open it quickly and read through the grades…

Oh, art… D. I hate art.

…

Music: A

Wait, I got an A in music!

I really loved to study that piece…

Wait, how come I can’t study for 10 minutes. But I just studied for 7 hours and genuinely enjoyed it…

nobody had to tell me to study for that long, I just did it myself.

…

At first, the lesson I took from this was simple:

Maybe I actually am smart.

But years later, I think even that was incomplete.

I was still trying to answer the same question.

What am I?

Smart or stupid.
Disciplined or lazy.
Shy or social.

Life kept showing me that I was more conditional than any of those labels allowed.

Wait.

I can’t study for ten minutes…

but I just practiced piano for seven hours?

Maybe the question wasn’t simply whether I was disciplined.

Maybe it mattered what I was trying to become disciplined for.

And once I started looking, the same contradiction was everywhere.

I thought I hated writing.
Then writing became one of the most important parts of my business.

I thought I hated reading.
Then I found questions I desperately wanted answered and started reading voluntarily.

I thought I was simply shy.
Then I went to South Africa, talked to strangers constantly, and loved it.

Life kept giving me evidence that school never had the opportunity to give me.

Looking back, I don’t blame school.

School had to measure something.

Tests measured my answers.
Essays measured my assignments.
Grades measured my performance.
Attendance measured whether I showed up.

Those measurements weren’t necessarily wrong.

I was asking them questions they were never designed to answer.

A bad grade became:
“Am I smart?”

Struggling to study became:
“Am I disciplined?”

Sitting alone became:
“Am I someone people want around?”

Hating an essay became:
“Do I hate writing?”

Eventually those answers stopped sounding like things that happened to me…

and started sounding like me.

Then life kept contradicting them.

And I began to realize that maybe growing up wasn’t about finally discovering the perfect description of myself.

Maybe it was learning to question all the descriptions I had mistaken for permanent.

School didn’t decide who I was.

I let what happened at school decide what I thought I was.

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Video games were basically my entire life growing up.

And somehow, I turned that into my job.

Now I literally make money playing games…

but after a few hours, I usually want to stop.

For a while, I thought I was losing my passion for them.

But I think something else happened.

My life got bigger than my bedroom.

School ends yet again, I can finally go home and play video games.

I run home and immediately throw my school bag on the floor as I hop on my computer…

I say hello to my friends and we start to play all day…

…

It’s dark outside, but I really don’t want to stop playing, I know I won’t get much sleep but I need to do this…

I’m spending 12 hours some weekends just playing, even though I should be studying.

One day though I’m in bed after a day of school…

Father, I’m sick. I can’t go to football practice…

Honestly don’t want to play sports today, I just want to rest and play video games…

…

Door opens…

Father!

He just looks at me with an angry expression and closes the door…

He saw me only with underwear sitting on my computer playing games…

Damn, I wish my parents would understand that I really just love being at home and playing games…

Maybe I should quit football so I have more time for games…

…

Summer vacation starts… this is the best time of my life!

I’m hopping on my computer. Instead of going outside and enjoying the warm weather after a long hard winter… the only thing I cared about was the amount of time that I could just stay up all night and play.

It’s 6 AM. I’ve been playing all night with my friends, and I can see the sun through the blinds…

this is the worst… Now I have to hear the birds chirping and I can barely sleep.

…

I wake up at 5 PM. My father looks at me walk out my bedroom and just said…

Had a good night?

I respond positively… I guess my dad doesn’t care as long as I get good grades at school. But during the summer break I can do whatever the hell I want…

After eating “breakfast” at nearly 6 PM…

I decide to get a bit of tape from my dads closet and close my curtains…

Tape the edges of it to the wall…

And now, it’s almost completely dark in my room.

Now, I can play games all night and just relax…

I think I’m just a Night Owl. I prefer the darkness and I’m just introverted, so I don’t need to go outside and meet people.

Just my type of lifestyle…

I’m playing games for a living now…

I decided to become a gaming YouTuber to help my mother, who was constantly exhausted from working.

So now… I’m playing games and making videos out of them for 12 hours a day…

This is just perfect, so so perfect.

I again, close the curtains. Tape them shut and just work…

And it works. I earn so much money I can barely believe it. I really must be dreaming.

So now, I never have to leave my house…

I can play with my friends and do whatever…

And I can help my mother.

I come up from my room at 3 PM. My dad starts to talk about it…

Alex, I know you like being awake at night. But please fix your sleep schedule…

I don’t really care about that. I love working at night…

Alex! We should travel to South Africa, you deserve a break!

Hmm, yeah I have been working for a few years now just playing games…

Let me travel to this new place…

I tell him I’ll go. And I don’t think much about it.

…

Oh my god! Look at this place! Full of crime and guns and violence!

My dad tells me…

Alex, you haven’t been there have you? You haven’t seen the whole story, you first need to experience it.

I know my dad has been there seventeen times. But I’m not blind.

Am I going to die down there in South Africa?

…

We’re driving to this massive lagoon with a village next to it. This is something so beautiful…

I ended up talking to some people selling ice cream there…

And they were so nice and happy, so open.

…

Then at the village next to this lagoon…

I sit down and this older couple comes in.

I ask them if they needed help with the menu.

Thank you! What’s your name?

We ended up speaking… until I glance over at the sky…

I arrived here when the sun was still high…

and now, it is completely dark.

…

I’m walking into the restaurant to pay and there are even more people there.

Asking me for my name, how Europe is and whatnot…

My god, I love Europe but I just love being here and talking to you!

My voice was hurting when me and my father were driving home, because I had talked to much…

Wait.

If I’m naturally someone who wants to stay inside and avoid people…

why am I enjoying this so much?

See son! I knew you would like it here. Not like what you saw online hah!

Hmm I guess he’s right… so far.

…

In the end, I had talked more in 2 weeks than years back at home…

And I’m thinking…

Why do I have to go home? I just wanna stay here…

For the first time in probably a decade…

I thought to myself…

I’ve barely thought about my computer or games this trip.

I thought I knew how the vacation would go based on the bad news I saw from my bedroom…

But I never thought that the things I would experience was something I simply couldn’t read or think about from my bedroom.

I’m sitting down in my bedroom and touch my keyboard and mouse for the first time in weeks…

Damn… I have to get back to playing games and have to make a new video.

But… I just wanna go back and talk to people…

I want to enjoy the lovely sun…

and experience the nature.

…

Eventually I start to do things that I can control, outside of vacations…

I’m going to the gym…

I pick up books and read…

I start to play the piano that I had abandoned for years…

Go out for walks…

to enjoy the nature that had been outside my window for years.

Talk to random people and give out compliments everywhere. Just like in South Africa.

My family…

they tell me that I’ve never been more happier or talkative and that I spend more time with them.

Eventually, I build this business where I help people reinterpret their lives through stories…

And all of the sudden, my whole life involves tiny experiences that literally mean me having to go outside, and travel.

Video games didn’t become less fun. Other parts of life became more meaningful.

I’m playing games with my friends…

I’ve decided that I only play on Saturdays…

I love it, I never stopped loving video games.

But I tell them…

If I spend all week playing video games… It will prevent me from living the life I currently want to build.

I could become so addicted and play all week, but I simply can’t.

And they respect it…

now we all look forward to the one day that we play.

…

I’m sitting at my computer, ready to record my gaming videos for four hours…

As I get into it, I start thinking about my books…

I’m thinking about the piano piece I’m learning….

Oh my god, the places I want to travel to…

I’m literally daydreaming and escaping my video games. When I used to escape my life to just focus on the games.

Now, while I’m playing… I look at the sun shining on the trees.

I can’t believe I used to tape my curtains shut so I wouldn’t have to see the wonderful world outside.

Looking back, I thought I was growing out of video games.

But I don’t think I was.

I still love games.

I still love being alone sometimes.

And I still spend a ridiculous amount of time in this room.

But this room used to contain almost everything I wanted from life.

Now it doesn’t.

I didn’t stop loving what was inside my bedroom.

I just discovered how much life existed outside of it.

The richer my life became, the less I needed one thing to fill it.

Years later, I thought I was stupid.

And somehow, I spent even more years wondering whether I was special enough to ever do something great.

Looking back, I think I was asking the wrong question.

Because every time I tried to figure out who I was, the answer changed depending on what had just happened to me.

I’m 5 years old sitting in kinder garden…

all my classmates are playing in class…

I’m getting a little bit bored. Hmm…

I’ll get a piece of paper and just start writing something.

So I draw the number 1…

Then… 2,3,4…

100, 101, 105…

300, 301, 302…

507, 508, 509…

Oh… the whole page has been covered in numbers… I can’t draw anymore.

…

My teacher comes up and starts yelling…

Alexander! What have you done?!

I did something wrong, I can’t hold back my tears…

I start to cry audibly…

Then my mother whose also a teacher comes up to my teacher…

Sorry I didn’t mean to upset him, but in my 21 years as a teacher I’ve never seen anything like it!

My mother starts to laugh…

I’m studying for a test in school, but it’s so incredibly boring…

I wish I could do something fun. Oh well let me just study and get this over with…

…

I can’t do this anymore, I’ll just do the test. How much time has passed?

10 minutes…

Why can’t I study for longer? But I don’t want too, let me go to bed and just watch YouTube shorts and movies.

…

I’m doing the test… and the smart kids are quickly finishing it.

I see one by one how they finish the test early…

Every time I hear another chair be pushed back against the floor…

I look up and think…

How are they so quick? It takes me twice as long to thoroughly go through this…

I’m just not smart like them…

I heard one of them has almost perfect grades across the school, probably will become a doctor…

Yet, I don’t even know what I want to do with my life.

Maybe I’m just too stupid. I can’t even focus or study.

Because, my classmates can study for hours without a break…

I stopped thinking:

I started thinking:

And that mattered because I thought smart people were the people who did great things.

So if I wasn’t smart...

why would I ever try to do great things?

My mother hears a lovely tune of music downstairs…

She thinks she’s dreaming, she puts on her robe and heads down…

It’s a piano playing?

She sees me practicing on the piano…

Oh my god Alexander. You’re still practicing?!

I look up at her with a smile and tell her I’m almost done…

I’m learning this piece by Yiruma, River Flows in You.

And I just want to get a better grade in music so decided to learn it just by myself…

…

But I look at the clock while my mother is here…

It’s midnight. My mother came home 7 hours ago and saw me practicing…

You’re so smart, Alex!

For once, I believed the words smart about me…

How could I not study for 10 minutes at my desk.

Yet spend 7 hours learning music when nobody really told me too?

…

Looking back, nothing magical happened to my brain that day.

The evidence changed.

…

My teacher looks at the video…

Oh my good Alex, that’s great!

…

I look at my report card at the end of semester.

Music: A

I’m trying to do a class presentation…

I have a really great paper, but…

I’m too shy to really talk this out.

I completely mess up my words. I look down at my paper and not enough at my classmates…

I mess up again, I look up at them…

they’re just staring…

they must think I can’t talk.

…

My parents tell their friends that I’m just a shy and introverted kid and always have been.

They call me shy. And after enough awkward interactions, I start calling myself shy too.

I’m just a shy person. There’s nothing I can do about it…

I think I want a job or life where I don’t have to speak to people.

…

I become a gaming YouTuber and sit inside all day, not talking to anybody. Just to myself into my microphone…

What a lovely job. Now I don’t have to talk to people…

Knock

Son, we should travel to South Africa. You deserve a break!

…Hmm, actually I have been working for a few years now. Let me take a few weeks off.

I’m in a restaurant in this lovely little town, almost no people so should be peaceful…

This older couple comes up, older… but wow, especially the lady just looks so young and happy.

They start looking at the menu, a little bit confused. So I just start talking to them…

Need help with that?

Oh yes thank you, wow what’s your name sir?

…

The sun has set, it’s completely dark outside…

And I’m laughing with the people inside the restaurant and outside.

I go into the bar and people are asking me for my name and where I’m from.

I tell them about Europe and how I enjoy talking to the people here…

Yet, just a few hours before… I thought I would have a good time because there were almost no people I had to talk too…

If I’m naturally someone who doesn’t need people...

why am I enjoying all of this?

I thought identities described me. I didn’t realize they were giving me instructions.
Stupid meant: don’t attempt something intellectual.
Shy meant: avoid people.
Ordinary meant: don’t expect to do anything extraordinary.

Shy became a part of me that told me to live life without interacting with people.

And because of that I never thought I was special… even though my mother repeatedly told me I was, I couldn’t believe her…

so I never attempted anything extraordinary.

How was I ever supposed to know whether I was special?

I look at people younger than me…

People making millions who have lived shorter…

Kids going into the best schools…

A kid younger than me playing the piano better than me…

Someone going to the gym everyday and having a disciplined morning routine.

So many special people…

…

Am I special?

Is there anything in my life I’ve done that’s great?

Let me think…

Maybe the story I wrote the numbers 1-509… but I was just a kid.

School… no.

Physique… no.

Talent… no.

Personality… no.

But I did get an A in music… could maybe become a pianist.

My mother comes home everyday from work with an expression…

her back hurts…

her knees are swollen…

and her doctor tells her she needs to stop working or her condition will get worse…

But we need the money…

Mom. When I’m 18, I promise you never have to work again!

…

What do you want to do in school, Alexander?

I don’t know.. maybe become a computer engineer?

Let me just go for a normal path… I luckily do have good enough grades for it.

But… then I remember… The promise I made to my mother…

Let me focus on that, I’ll just take a year off school. Let me try to earn money like my favorite gaming youtuber. He’s a millionaire playing games. Then I can solve the biggest problem in my life.

…

Instead of doing a think where I think…

What does this say about me?

I start asking…

What does this problem require from me?

YouTube.

Learning.

Trying things.

Failing.

Improving.

Making money.

Continuing.

…

Oh my god you’re a YouTuber! teach me how!

You’re so special… you make that much money?!

Wow, you’re so successful for your age…

At five years old, one experience made someone think I was unusually smart.

Years later, another set of experiences made me think I was stupid.

I was the same person.

The evidence changed...

so the identity changed with it.

And I did the same thing with being shy.

Talented.

Confident.

Successful.

Special.

I spent years collecting evidence to figure out what kind of person I was.

But I never realized that the labels I chose were changing what evidence I would ever get to collect next.

Maybe you’ve been waiting too.

Waiting to know you’re smart enough.

Talented enough.

confident enough.

special enough...

before attempting the thing that could give you completely different evidence about yourself.

Maybe I was special.
Maybe I wasn’t.

I think I wasted years asking the wrong question.

Because I thought I needed to know what I was capable of before I tried to do something great.

But maybe you only find out what you’re capable of by giving yourself something meaningful to do.

I didn’t need proof that I was special.
I needed the chance to find out who I could become.

My mother leaves the house yet again at 04:30 am. I’m of course asleep but it’s pitch black outside…

I go to school with my father and sister, so I live most of my days without my mother…

But then as it’s dark again, I hear the opening of the door.

Somehow, through my headphones…

even while I’m playing games. I shove my headphones and run downstairs…

She greets me and I take off her jacket

Mom, when I’m 18 you will never have to work again!

I’m only 12 but I know I can do it!

…

I’m about to end primary school and I wonder what I’m going to do with my life…

Maybe I’ll become a computer engineer, maybe a doctor…

But then I remember,

My mother is struggling so much, and going through school would take too long to retire her.

How can I make a lot of money while doing something I enjoy?

Okay, I love watching PewDiePie. He’s a millionaire playing games. And I love games.

Instead of looking for a job, maybe I should solve the biggest problem in my life…

With a job that I would really enjoy…

…

I’m taking one year off before high school to seriously start YouTube…

I just published my first video on my new gaming channel…

Starts to grow slowly.

Okay, let me learn everything I can about YouTube.

I will spend 8-14 hour days just working…

Months have gone by, still only 277 subscribers…

…

I’ve been doing this for a few months now, and I’ve still barely gotten any growth…

Growth is actually declining…

Why isn’t this working!

I’ve been working so hard…

am I just wasting one year off my life…

…

My mother comes home from her job,

Her knees are swollen…

and she needs a foot bath because they’re too swollen…

And her back hurts so she comes home to sleep…

Welcome home mother…

But I can barely look her in her eyes…

her son, who took one year off school, is not going anywhere.

Why would she respect me?

Alexander! Hope you’re doing so well!

My mother is always so positive, how does she do it…

Oh my god!

My channel is exploding!

A video is going viral and everything is working out…

I even got monetized!

This is it…

All the hard work after months finally paid off…

Now I can start earning money and finally start to help my mother.

I tell her the news, she’s so happy for me!

I still have months until school begins. At this rate I won’t have to go to school!

…

It’s January 2022, It’s been 6 months since taking the gap year and the channel…

Is doing worse than ever…

Or it’s not actually doing so bad but I’m trying everything.

But it barely earns over 200-300 dollars a month.

I have over 1000 subscribers…

Yet it feels like none of them came back to watch most of my videos now.

…

Why did I even get excited…

Even when I make it, everything just fails again…

I never should’ve started this YouTube channel.

At least I would have been 6 months into my high school.

And now 6 months behind, well actually 12 because I’m wasting the next 6 months now.

My father tells me to help him with something…

Yes father!

As I’m doing my thing though. I’m too much in my thoughts, just thinking about if things don’t work out…

I end up messing up the tasking and forgetting things.

Alex, you forgot this thing. Pay more attention!

Usually, I let this go. I don’t even take it personally…

But I listen to him. And close off…

I hide my face and I’m trying my best not to break down in silence…

As I’m doing the work…

I’m wondering…

Why do I always fail…

why does everything I do just never work out…

and even when it does, god crushes my hope…

why do I even live, if I also can’t keep my promise to my mother.

…

I finish helping him and go back to my room.

I scream into my pillow…

I cry…

And for the first time in my life, I genuinely think about ending it.

I don’t actually want to die.

I just don’t want to keep feeling like a failure.

Because somehow…

had become

I’m in high school, the channel is actually doing pretty well for once…

I’m making $1000 a month. But now is time to actually focus on school. And not waste any more time. At least this path will be safe and secure…

as long as I get good grades…

do my homework…

and listen to the teachers…

…

I’m taking this test, and as I get the paper I look down…

Oh my god…

I don’t know anything about this…

Wait, didn’t I study for this?…

no, I was trying to grow my YouTube channel.

…

The test is halfway done and I almost start to break down…

Why am I such a failure?

I won’t even be able to pass high school at this rate…

I used to get such good grades in primary school.

Now school is failing, and my YouTube channel will fail too.

My mother cannot be saved…

…

I pick up the paper, try not to break down as I hand the teacher my test.

And I leave.

I used to walk up early with confidence in primary school because I knew I basically aced the test.

Now I’m walking out because I’ve become so much worse then I used to be…

…

I’m taking the train home, and I sit by the window seat…

I cry my heart out, but in a way where the sobbing is really quiet.

What do I do?

How can I ever achieve anything?

And now my mother is picking me up, oh great. Fucking great…

Now she will know how much I failed this test too…

And I know she will smile and tell me I’m so smart and everything, I know she means it.

But I just can’t do anything…

Because, I will watch her go to work tomorrow.

…

I enter the car and immediately start to cry more than I ever have in my life…

Alexander! What’s wrong. Did someone hurt you?!

Are you being bullied?!

I say to her…

I can’t do this mom… I can’t do it anymore…

I was also so stressed by school and by YouTube.

I’m working at school, and then spending 8-14 hour days during the weekends and breaks to work on YouTube.

I tell her I need to drop one of the businesses…

…

I’m at home and I feel good somehow, my mother understood…

she talked to my father and tells him she’s never seen me this upset ever.

At least now, I feel heard. And that I can decide what to do next.

…

I’m sick for a few weeks, turns out I had COVID.

I had taken one terrible test and used it as proof that I had become stupid.

I didn’t even know I had COVID.

A big update for my game comes, but I’m sick.

Doesn’t matter. I’m going make all the videos that I can about it. I have a lot of time now from school because I took a little break.

I’m streaming, and my viewers ask me if I’m okay…

I’m coughing and laughing as my viewers are worried.

But after a few days, something extraordinary happens…

I get more views than I ever had before.

…

$500 dollars in a single day!

I don’t care if I’m sick, I’m going to pump out videos!

I’m going to film all day, then spend the night editing the videos.

Then I earn $600 dollars with the next video.

And then, all of the sudden when November 2022 ends…

I had made $6000 dollars.

In a month.

…

I tell my mother the news, and for the first time…

Alex, you’re so smart and successful!

I actually believe her…

Maybe all those failures hadn’t been telling me who I was.

Maybe I needed to live long enough for new evidence to appear…

I’m so happy I’m alive.

I drop out of high school after a few months of doing it.

And I focus all in on YouTube…

I can go back to high school before I’m 20. So now that I’m 17, I have all the time to earn money and help my mother.

Then, a few months after dropping out.

$10,000…

$20,000…

It doesn’t feel like reality…

I was playing silly games for a living, and I could make so much money off it.

…

Yes, Alex he’s so successful! He’s playing games and makes more than doctors!

My mother when she talks about me…

But she always said that, she always said positive things about me.

Yet this time, I can smile and agree…

…

When I went to a tax consultant, he looks at me and my father and asks for my income…

Yes, he made $20,000 last month…

He looks absolutely shocked…

Even though I agree, I don’t think about the money at that point…

Because when I came home one day, I would buy the only thing that I needed money for…

My mother comes home one day from work and me and my father decide…

That she doesn’t have to work…

…

We tell her the news and she immediately jumps for joy….

Thank you, Alex! I’m so proud of you.

I’ve never seen her more happier in my life.

And I even though I have a faint smile because I act nonchalant…

I really never felt more fulfilled.

And I finally thought, that for once.

I could reach a goal.

…

Looking back, I thought all those failures were showing me who I was.

They weren’t.

They were showing me what I still didn’t know how to do.

I wasn’t useless.

I was inexperienced.

I was scared.

I was trying things I didn’t know how to do yet.

But because I couldn’t see the person I might become…

I treated the evidence I had that day like it was all the evidence I would ever have.

Maybe the most dangerous thing about failure isn’t failing.

It’s deciding too early what the failure means about you.

Because sometimes the evidence that changes your mind…

hasn’t happened yet.

I thought I knew how my story ended.

I was just reading it too early.

But looking back...

the life I wanted required me to make them.

The only way I could have stopped making mistakes...

was to stop doing anything that could change me.

Early on in school I’m naturally getting A’s and B’s. School made mistakes feel very simple. There was a right answer, a wrong answer, and enough wrong answers lowered your grade.

And so I never wanted to make mistakes. I remember once finishing a math test when I was 14…

I did quite good on the test, but I made a mistake on one of the questions.

I couldn’t get my mind off of it. How did it happen? It shouldn’t have been a mistake.

I sit down with my math teacher and we spend a long time on it.

Teacher, I know the right answer now!

I never should’ve made that mistake.

My teacher says,

It’s okay Alex, you still did well.

But I didn’t want him to think I did badly.

So now that I showed him I could figure out the right answer, now he thinks I’m smart…

Alex, you’ve figured it out, you will do better next test.

Now, I’m not as much of a failure.

…

So somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing mistakes as information. I started seeing them as evidence of how well I was doing.

It’s a lovely summer day and my dad asks me for help…

Alex, come and help me grill this meat!

Yes dad!

I’m sitting and watching the grill.

But occasionally I’m looking away at the nature or something, I’m easily distracted.

All of the sudden, a bit of the fat on the meat dripped down into the flames…

a cloud of fire burst from the food…

okay, I know what I’m supposed to do…

turn off the gas…

get the fire blanket…

and close the grill.

…

But I freeze…

my dad rushes over, and he quickly handles everything himself.

but I realized that…

Some mistakes actually can have consequences.

so now, I start noticing mistakes everywhere…

Tiny details I could’ve done differently.

Things I constantly forgot.

And decisions I could’ve made differently.

Eventually, that way of thinking follows me into bigger decisions.

Should I stay in school?

Should I drop out?

Should I keep doing YouTube?

What if I choose wrong?

Now a mistake doesn’t just mean losing points on a test.

It feels like I could ruin my future.

…

I’m in high school and trying to build up my YouTube gaming channel.

And I’m doing a test that I thought would be easy…

But now, I can barely think of any answers…

Wait, I knew this as a kid…

I’ve never felt this lost in school ever…

Why am I so dumb?

I make so many mistakes and I end up walking up and handing the paper early…

Because I feel like a complete failure compared to who I was in primary school…

….

Then, as I decide to focus all in on my business I decide to drop out…

And dropping out of school becomes terrifying because there is no answer sheet anymore.

Nobody can tell me whether it’s the right decision.

…

My sister calls me and is crying. She tells me to come up.

I’ve heard her cry a lot but something about her tone this time was very serious…

I hear intense footsteps upstairs…

I rush to my family…

I see that my father has cut himself and that there’s blood everywhere.

I assertively ask my family if anybody has called emergencies in a calm and clear tone of voice…

my sister can barely talk, I understand.

I take her phone and I call them.

I’ve never talked more clearly in my life…

But when they asked all the questions I accidentally missed one…

Sorry what did you say?

After correcting myself, I help clean up the floor and we drive to the hospital

…

Everything ended up working out…

But I never thought I would ever act like I’m in full control of my body, in an emergency like this.

For years, freezing at that grill became evidence that I couldn’t trust myself when something went wrong.

I still made a mistake. I misheard one of the questions. But this time, I didn’t treat the mistake like proof that I couldn’t handle the situation. I corrected it and kept going.

I notice the same thing when I play piano in public.

I used to make one mistake...
and immediately think about the mistake.

Sometimes that made me mess up the next few notes too.

Now I can hit the wrong key...
hear it...
and keep playing.

The mistake still happened.

I just stopped turning one wrong note into the rest of the song.

…

One wrong note doesn’t ruin a song unless I stop playing because of it.

Maybe life works the same way.

…

Then I look at the decisions that changed my life most.

Starting YouTube.
Leaving school.
Relationships.
Businesses.

None of them came with an answer sheet.

I made bad calls.
Changed direction.
Failed.
Corrected.

And somehow, I kept moving.

And slowly I realize:

the choices that created the most growth in my life...

were also the choices where mistakes were unavoidable.

I had spent years trying to build a life where I made fewer mistakes.

But to eliminate mistakes completely...

I would have had to eliminate experimentation.

Risk.

Learning.

Change.

I would have had to stop moving.

That doesn’t mean mistakes don’t matter.

Some mistakes hurt people.

Some cost money.

Some have real consequences.

So now, when I make one, I try to do something different.

Take responsibility.

Fix what I can.

Understand why it happened.

Learn from it.

But I try not to turn:

I made a mistake

into:

I am a mistake.

I used to think a good life was one where I made fewer mistakes.

Now I think it’s one where I make them...

take responsibility...

learn what they can teach me...

and keep moving.

Because the only way I could have stopped making mistakes...

was to stop doing anything that could change me.

But the same feeling can mean completely different things.

I’ve just found out I need braces. But before I can get them, I have to get four teeth pulled out.

So, now I have to get the first one pulled…

Why did I agree to this…

I’m going to experience the worst pain ever…

I have to get them pulled out in a few weeks…

…

Everyday I’m thinking about how the dentist will cut me open.

And I start to get stomach cramps.

I can’t think straight while working.

And I talk while I work, how the hell will I work with teeth operations and braces?

…

I’m shaking as I’m waiting for my name to be called…

My stomach starts to rumble and it starts to hurt…

Am I going to bleed out?

What if he accidentally cuts parts of my mouth?

…

Alexander!

I enter the room and he tells me to sit down…

After injecting the anesthetic, I immediately close my eyes and just focus on staying calm.

I can feel something being cut…

But then all of the sudden, I feel the tooth going out.

…

There we go Alexander, it’s done.

Wait already? That was quick.

And now, my stomach pain is gone…

My mind is calm…

And I’m glad that I’m making progress towards braces…

…

Doctor, am I going to lose too much blood?

No, Alexander. It will bleed but the bleeding will stop soon.

I had spent weeks reacting to something that hadn’t even happened yet.

…

I’m at the airport. I’m about to fly home with my sister alone from vacation.

Even though I thought I was confident...

I was incredibly nervous.

My mind was racing.

As we were lining up for passport control...

I go and stand there, but then this woman comes up to me.

I’m thinking,

Ah she must be saying something nice.

I honestly don’t even remember what she said.

…

Then another guy comes up and said clearly.

What do you think you’re doing, you’re cutting in line!

What is wrong with you?!

And then I immediately apologized.

I’m so sorry.

It’s my fault

He looks at me up and down with discontent and walks in front.

I take my sister to the back of the line.

I realize that I had mixed up the queue.

It was completely my fault.

I was so inside my own head.

that I stood in the wrong line.

Now everyone is thinking about me.

Great.

Now everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

I’ll remember this forever.

…

A few minutes later, the people who complained to me.

They are talking with their travel mates.

Looking down on their phones.

Laughing with their mates.

…

They’re not even looking at me, I’m right behind them.

Why aren’t they thinking about me?

Aren’t they concerned with me?

I just made a big mistake.

What I did has been done, and I’m just going to make sure me and my sister get home safely.

Instead, I forgive myself and I stop thinking about it for a minute.

The moment had ended for them. I was the one keeping it alive.

I’m in South Africa, just arrived to enjoy this lovely vacation…

I’m walking the lovely beaches…

Enjoying the good food…

And the sun everyday…

But me and my girlfriend get into an argument online. And it was a big one.

…

We decide to breakup and go our own paths…

I’m absolutely devastated, I thought I would marry her.

Even when the sun is shining, I close the curtains and just cry all day the next day.

I can’t exit my room to tell my parents.

I don’t know what I’ll do without her…

I feel so alone again…

I thought she was my soulmate…

…

I need another girlfriend, maybe if I become a millionaire it will be easier.

When I’m back home, I will go to the library and read, that’s where the smart girls will be.

And I’ll go to the gym more…

I’m reading at the library, and every 10 minutes I look up…

Is that my future girlfriend?

I keep on reading, but damn, I want a girlfriend.

…

After a few weeks I’m reading again…

But this time, I don’t look up.

I still notice girls walking by. But now I don’t even want to lose my place on the page.

I’m reading all about becoming successful, understanding myself and other non-fiction topics.

I go to the gym several times every single week…

And I even start to play the piano every single day.

…

After a few months, I have become a version of myself I thought was in my dreams.

And yet, I thought the time after my breakup would look like a nightmare.

The pain was real. But what I thought the pain meant wasn’t necessarily true.

I thought the pain meant I had lost the life I wanted. Looking back, it pushed me into a life I hadn’t even imagined yet.

When I feel something strongly now, I don’t immediately ask:

How do I get rid of this?

I try to ask:

What am I feeling and what am I assuming this feeling means?

Because fear can feel like danger.

Pain can feel like a ruined future.

Embarrassment can feel like everyone is judging you.

The feeling can be completely real without your interpretation of it being true.

I thought feeling bad meant my life was going wrong.

Looking back...

I thought my feelings were telling me what was true.

Sometimes, they were only telling me what I believed was true.

Feelings are real. But they are not always reality.

But somehow, a few days somewhere unfamiliar could change how I saw myself for years.

And the strange thing is, it usually wasn’t the extraordinary part of the trip that changed me.

I went to Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

But some of the experiences I remember most were just talking to French people and random tourists.

Looking back, the experiences that changed me most often seemed completely ordinary while they were happening.

I’m gaming almost everyday, I play with my friends and we’re having a good time together…

I never want this moment to end, I also talk about how school sucks and how I just want to stay inside and enjoy my life…

I start racking up thousands of hours as a teenager on many games, I’m so happy when I'm just at home doing my own things…

…

When I graduated primary school, I’m working as a gaming YouTuber and live the same life, playing games as a living is the life.

I can work online so I never have to leave the house…

I’m making videos, then consuming content about the world.

Wow, my country really is going to hell…

That country I will never visit…

The news is covering all this crime, thank god I can stay inside forever…

…

I go outside to pick up some stuff and buy food in my home town…

Oh my god that guy can barely drive…

Okay, somebody is yelling at someone there…

Did that person look me up and down?

Yeah, let me just stay at home…

The world is clearly chaotic.

…

The less I experienced the world, the more certain I became that I understood it.

My father tells me that we should visit South Africa…

He’s been there so many times, he talks about the food, the people and the weather…

I tell him,

Okay, I’ve worked for a few years. I can take a couple weeks off.

And so I don’t think much of it, it’s a few months from now.

…

I’m consuming all the news about South Africa…

The crime…

The barbed wires around houses…

The guns…

I’m thinking to myself,

Oh no, I shouldn’t go. I’m going to get robbed and die.

I’m shaking as I watch more of the content and their politics…

Oh my god is that what the politicians think of certain people?

Isn’t that country the most racist?

Okay, it has the most wealth inequality…

I’m landing at the airport in Cape Town…

As we get our luggage, I see security guards with assault rifles…

My god, this may be my last trip ever. Especially to this country.

There are people with guns… at the airport.

…

We pick up our car and drive to the hotel,

Look at the table mountain!

My father says,

And I think to myself,

Wow… yeah look at the tabletop mountain!

The clouds are flowing over the mountain!

Yeah, that’s the table cloth, they call it.

…

As we arrive at our place, we go out and I see a homeless guy, half naked walking around…

Do you see him?

Yes Alex, there’s homeless people everywhere.

I’m a bit bothered but okay…

As we drive around South Africa I see the most beautiful nature I have ever experienced in my life…

A rainbow bending over the desert, while thunderstorms rage to the left of it…

I think I’m in heaven,

I’m talking to people and smiling my heart out, here they seem so genuine…

They are constantly smiling and asking about me and my father…

I remember talking more in a few days there than months at home.

…

But as we continue to drive…

I also see places called townships, where people are poorer and live very dense to each other.

When we’re pulling up to traffic lights, people are selling goods.

They show them to all the cars until the green light turns on…

One time we paid for some fruits and as we drive off, he grabs our car and scream

Please give me money, more money!

As he falls down…

And we were in a town where even children were asking for money…

I still saw inequality.

Some of what I’d seen online was real.

But so was everything I hadn’t seen.

The internet hadn't necessarily lied to me. It had given me information without the experience required to put that information into context.

…

But despite that as the vacation was coming to an end I didn’t want to leave South Africa…

When I left, I wish I had stayed…

I’m celebrating my sister’s 18th birthday party by spending it in Paris…

She is so happy, and we’re going to the Louvre and to see the Eiffel tower…

But it was freezing as hell, I’m going up the tower and trying to cover myself up because the wind is blasting me…

But it was still nice I guess…

Eiffel Tower.
Louvre.
Famous city.

Yet what stayed with me?

The people, I remember talking to people from Spain…

I practiced Spanish as good as possible with them, and they enjoyed it.

We met up to tour the Eiffel tower together… But yet, I liked talking to them just as much as being up at the Eiffel tower.

At home, I start talking to people more… giving compliments…

I thought people here in Sweden didn’t talk a lot… But when I genuinely talked to them like I did in South Africa, something changed.

They opened up more, they smiled…

This guy at my pizzeria always smiles and I ask him about his life every time I go there…

…

I always went to the gym, even when I was always playing games and stuff.

But this time, I talk more to the people there…

I apparently start becoming known at the gym…

A business owner somehow knew about my business as started asking me for help.

And I am the one to smile first to people, which sometimes leads to conversations.

…

I thought Sweden was quiet and lonely.

But when I came home and started behaving differently, people started responding differently.

The place hadn’t changed. I had changed how I entered it.

…

Every time I gave myself more experiences, I gave myself more opportunities to discover that something I believed wasn't completely true.

I think I hate people.

So I avoid people.

Because I avoid people, I don’t have experiences that contradict the belief.

So I continue believing I hate people.

And I started wondering how many other things in my life worked the same way.

If I thought I was shy, I avoided talking.

If I avoided talking, I never got better at it.

Every awkward conversation became more evidence that I was shy.

My experiences shaped my beliefs. But my beliefs were also choosing my experiences.

I had spent so much time interpreting life that I’d stopped giving life a chance to contradict my interpretations.

Maybe that’s why some weeks of my life changed me more than entire years.

It wasn’t because those weeks were longer.

There was simply more life inside them.

…

But I don’t think the answer is to book a flight to South Africa.

I don’t think you need to chase extraordinary experiences at all.

The times when I traveled to experience the biggest things in my life…

The things that impacted me the most were often the ordinary small incidents…

I used to think changing my life would require something extraordinary.

But when I look back at the periods where I changed the most, I mostly find ordinary things.

Conversations.

Mistakes.

People I barely knew.

Places I went.

Things that didn’t seem important enough to remember.

And maybe that’s why I couldn’t understand what they were doing to me at the time.

Maybe the experiences changing who you are don’t feel important yet because you haven’t lived long enough to understand what they changed.

For years, I thought I needed to sit alone and think harder until I understood myself.

But sometimes I didn’t need to think more about my life.

I needed more life to think about.

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So I thought the hard part was over.

Then I failed my driving test four times.

I’m shaking as I’m waiting for the driving instructor. I’m about to get my driver’s license if I pass this driving test.

As we enter the car, my hands are starting to slip because of the sweat…

I tell myself,

It’s okay, I’ll just focus on the road.

As we’re driving out, the instructor is dead quiet. She just tells me where to go…

As she’s writing down or filling in the check marks…

I think I made a tiny mistake…

Oh no, let me glance over and see what she’s doing…

But because of that now I’m so focused on not failing that I’m not driving properly.

…

The test was going well still, but now I had to reverse into a road.

This seems pretty easy, no cars here…

As I turn, somehow I almost turn off the road…

Do it again…

Now, I have to do it correctly, or she will think that I don’t deserve to pass.

…

Again, I can’t reverse properly. What am I doing wrong?

…

Now, the drive back to the driving school was awful…

I’m still hopeful, maybe there’s a chance?

Yeah, unfortunately Alex. You’ve failed the test.

…

I tell her I understand…

Then as I leave the place I cry…

I try to dry my tears with my shirt…

45 minutes pass before I even get the courage to tell my father.

…

I passed the theory test on my first try.

I genuinely thought I would pass this too.

Now I have to call my father...

and tell him I failed.

Okay, I’m driving quite well this time, the instructor doesn’t seem so cold and serious…

I’m smiling a little bit as I’m driving…

I signal correctly…

Maintain the correct speed…

And check my mirrors constantly…

…

I accidentally make a mistake. But it’s small…

I think to myself…

No, I’m not going to look at the instructor. Stay focused on the road, I got this.

…

The last part of the test comes up, he looks satisfied. So now all I have to do is park the car.

He tells me, out of any of these spots just park the car in…

I want to prove to him I could park next to a car, I will prove myself to him…

…

I’m literally parking one centimeter next to this other car, the car instructor yells…

Stop, stop… STOP!

I quickly stop… And he tells me to look…

I did it again, I messed up. If I were to have continued I would’ve scratched the car.

…

Alex, why didn’t you just pick one of the open spots?
Yeah, I don’t know. I messed up. I completely understand why I failed.

The first test, I could blame my nerves.

But this time?

I had chosen the harder parking spot myself.

There were empty spots everywhere.

Why would I do that?

For the first time, I wasn’t just disappointed that I’d failed.

I was disappointed in myself.

…

I don’t even want to cry… I’m just disappointing in myself, I call my father to pick me up…

And as I’m telling him why I failed, he tells me it’s all good.

But telling him why I failed this time, was the hardest thing ever.

I thought because I was so close to passing my second driving test I would get it the third time.

But I somehow kept failing and failing,

My third driving test, I drive too slowly in a roundabout. And the instructor looks annoyed.

…

Maybe, I’m just bad at driving,

Why don’t I just take the bus or train…

I never should’ve ever taken this driving license.

I hate this, I hate this…

…

I take my fourth driving test, and this time I’m not even feeling anything, I just focus on the road…

I messed up seriously again…

Having to tell my father that I failed again…

I feel so numb as I have to tell him again, that I failed.

The first time I failed, I cried because I couldn’t believe I’d failed.

By the fourth time, I barely reacted because I could believe it.

Failure had become what I expected from myself.

All these driving tests I took at a big city that was unfamiliar, now I got a test in the city where I learnt…

As I’m heading for the test, I drink a red bull…

I got this, I’m going to fucking pass this no matter what…

…

As I’m driving, I’m literally smiling…

The instructor is doing his thing…

On my first test, every time the instructor wrote something down, I wanted to know what it meant.

Did I mess up? Does she think I’m bad? Am I failing?

Four failures later, something was different.

He could write whatever he wanted.

I didn’t look over to see his reaction…

My job wasn’t to convince him I was a good driver.

My job was to drive.

…

As I pull into the driving school, he looks at me.

Oh no, I probably failed again,

…

Is he giving me that look?

…

Alexander, you drove really well.

You passed.

…

Really! oh my god thank you sir!

Yes, you drove really well. You made a few mistakes but I would say you’re very competent.

I smile so much I end up giving him a handshake.

…

Then I call my father, and my parents are extremely happy and proud of me.

Passing the theory test once didn’t make me a genius.

Failing the driving test four times didn’t make me a failure.

Passing the fifth didn’t suddenly make me a winner.

They were results. I was the one turning them into identities.

Somewhere along the way, I had stopped saying:

I failed.

And started thinking:

I’m a failure.

Those sound almost identical.

But one describes something that happened.

The other describes who I am.

And if I could turn four failed driving tests into an identity...

I started wondering what else in my life I’d done the same thing with.

Maybe failing doesn’t tell you who you are.

Maybe it only tells you what happened this time.

As the classroom is dead silent, all of the sudden I adjust my body a little.

SCRAMBLE!

All my classmates are looking at me now…

The teacher walks up to me, asks what I have under my body…

I look up to her as my whole body gets warm and sweaty…

I hand her the paper with all the answers…

And everyone bursts out laughing.

…

As the test is over, the teacher tells me to stay. Again my classmates look back at me and giggle.

Oh no, this is it… my father is also a teacher at this school so she will tell him.

I immediately start thinking of excuses.

…

Alex, I know you cheated, but I won’t tell your father.
Just redo the test again.

I’m completely shocked, I was ready to defend myself, say I didn’t have time to study. And that if only I hadn’t moved I never would’ve been caught.

But instead, she gives me a chance to redo it? And she won’t tell my father?

…

Looking back, this was obviously my fault.

I literally had the answers under my butt.

But whenever something went wrong, my first instinct wasn’t to ask what I’d done wrong.

It was to find a reason why it wasn’t really my fault.

My father would give me something to do.

I’d completely forget.

Alex, what happened?

Ah... I couldn’t find it. I tried, but it didn’t work.

I hadn’t tried.

I forgot.

But now my father thought I’d tried.

And somehow that made me feel better.

I cared more about looking responsible than actually being responsible.

I stole my dads credit card to buy virtual currencies in a game…

I just took a little bit of money, I didn’t think it was that much…

And then I bought some gems in Clash of Clans.

But in the moment, my stomach drops.

Something feels wrong, but then for a second…

I get to become better at this video game.

I tell myself that I deserve this.

…

My father finds out.

Alex, what did you do with my card?!

And somehow...

I still deny it.

I run to my mother.

I tell her I didn’t do anything.

She believes me.

So now she’s defending me from my father...

while I’m standing there knowing he’s right.

And suddenly they’re arguing with each other...

over something I know I did.

…

I thought denying my mistakes protected me.

But responsibility doesn’t disappear because you refuse to take it.

Someone else usually ends up carrying it.

I’m halfway across the world when I realize I’ve made a serious mistake.

I’m buying a house from my father...

and I forgot to sign one of the documents.

The loan needs to be paid out urgently.

And because of my mistake, my father could lose thousands of dollars.

So I have to tell him.

…

Two days pass before I finally call him.

Father... I messed up.

He gets upset.

And immediately, my brain starts doing what it had done since I was a kid.

The bank wasn’t clear.

I’m halfway across the world.

How was I supposed to know?

I was buying my own house...

but for a moment I was the same kid sitting in that classroom trying to explain away the cheat sheet under his butt.

…

But then he tells me…

Alex, it’s all good. I’m not angry at you.
Life happens, let’s just solve this problem.

…

And suddenly there was nothing left to defend.

I had made the mistake.

He knew I’d made the mistake.

I knew I’d made the mistake.

So we could finally stop figuring out who to blame and start figuring out what to do.

I’m trying to water the flowers in my garden, but all of the sudden the water hose breaks…

I try to reinstall it but I can’t fix it…

I just lay it down on the ground and hope my parents fixes it…

…

My father calls me up…

Alex, why is the water hose here?

I tell him that it’s broken and that it can’t get in.

Then he tells me

Alex, if you don’t know the answer. Call me, or ask ChatGPT. Whatever, just don’t leave a task uncompleted.

For a split second I try to think about something to say to defend myself…

To tell him that it wasn’t my fault.

But, I tell him…

I was wrong, and you’re absolutely right…
I messed up, and will 100% call you or help myself out. I won’t half ass it.

That was it.

No argument.

No excuse.

Nothing to protect.

…

My dad smiles…

Claps my back…

And heads on off…

When my teacher caught me cheating, I thought admitting I was wrong meant losing.

For years, I protected myself that way.

If I could find a reason something wasn’t my fault, I didn’t have to feel as bad about it.

And sometimes...

things genuinely weren’t my fault.

But eventually I realized I was asking the wrong question.

Because proving something wasn’t my fault never told me what to do next.

So now I try to ask:

What part of this is mine?

Sometimes the answer is everything.

Sometimes it’s almost nothing.

But I can always decide what I do next.

I used to protect my ego by denying my mistakes.

Now I protect my relationships by admitting them.

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean believing everything is your fault.

Not everything that happens to me is my fault.

But what I do with it is my responsibility.

I thought that made me strong.

It actually made me impossible to know.

People knew what I did. They didn’t know me.

I’m hanging out with my girlfriend.

We are constantly laughing and hugging each other.

I thought she knew everything about me.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

But then, problems start to arise…

She starts talking about her problems to me, and I’m listening closely.

I really pick up everything about her problems…

But after doing that for a few weeks, she tells me…

Alex, I have no idea what you’re thinking. It’s almost like I’m talking to a stone wall.

I’m shocked, not angry or anything. But I don’t know what she means…

…

Then she goes on to explain…

It’s like life for you is all positive and butterflies, like you don’t have any problems.

…

Alex, we are together…

but sometimes I just feel so alone…

I still don’t understand…

But I tell her…

I don’t really understand what you mean.

But I’ll do my best to understand.

…

All my life, I didn’t think I needed to talk about my problems.

I thought my problems weren’t important enough to mention.

So I listened.

Everyone talked.

I stayed quiet.

I didn’t realize communication isn’t just listening.

It’s letting other people know you too.

My mother tells me about her problems at work…

My sister tells me about problems at school…

My father tells me about his problems with life…

I just enjoy listening to them. I don’t say anything most of the time, I try to give advice when I can but…

I genuinely believed I had nothing worth saying.

From the outside, life looked perfect.

I had financial freedom.

A successful YouTube channel.

A loving relationship.

So who was I to complain?

Yes I stress about problems with the bank.

Worry about the future…

About starting and managing the business…

Not knowing what videos to make sometimes and getting burnt out…

…

I convinced myself they weren't worth talking about.

So I keep everything to myself. I think I’m being mature that way.

People thought I was almost perfect…

Just a positive guy with a great business and life…

But I can only talk about the positive… and only listen to their negatives.

When they genuinely ask me how business or life is going…

How’s your business going?

It’s good, yeah.

Nice.

Or

How’s life, you've been good?

I’ve been okay.

that’s good to hear…

…

And the conversation ends there. Every conversation couldn’t go deep.

I never thought this was an issue, it didn’t even occur to me that this was an issue in my life.

…

I wasn't protecting people from my problems.

…

I was protecting myself from being seen.

I’m sick with a runny nose…

I can barely move in my bed...

And I’m coughing…

For the first time, I decide to call my girlfriend and tell her this…

I told her I wasn’t okay, and that I will just rest up.

…

I thought it was just an ordinary thing what I did.

…

But she genuinely asked how I was…

what medicine I’m taking…

and if she can help…

I always thought telling people my problems would burden them.

Instead, it gave them a chance to care.

She didn’t think less of me.

She simply cared.

I’m sitting in the car with my girlfriend…

And I tell her a story about the exact reason as to why I didn’t open up, or why I was never open as a person.

And why I think I felt like a stone wall…

I told her the story that I had spent years avoiding.

Yet, that time might have been the most impactful and positive experience for the relationship.

…

Now when someone tells me about their struggles...

I don’t just listen.

I tell them about mine too.

Not to complain.

But so they know they’re not alone.

Years later...

I finally understood what she meant.

People don’t connect through perfection.

They connect through honesty.

The day I stopped hiding my problems wasn’t the day my problems disappeared.

It was the day I finally let people know who I was.

She once told me,

Be more vulnerable.

I thought she wanted me to complain more.

She didn’t.

She just didn’t want to feel alone anymore.

I came home questioning things I’d believed for years.

In just four days...

I realized I didn’t hate clubs.

I misunderstood strangers.

And I remembered why I work so hard.

Oh no, my friends want to go to the club…

I really don’t want to, I’ve gone to a night club previously in Prague.

It was fully packed, the whole place smelled like weed. The music blasting my ears didn’t help either.

…

We are walking into this club, and there isn’t too many people. I’ve only drank a little bit of red bull.

But the music is nice and my friends start to dance.

Actually, let me just dance a little bit.

…

I’m on the main stage up and I’m dancing my heart out. The people there are all cheering for me.

This drunk guy grabs me.

So I just start dancing with him.

He’s really laughing, so I end up laughing too.

When I walked out, most of the people smiled and shook my hand.

…

The next morning…

I could barely walk through the airport.

My legs were cramping from dancing all night.

I never drank a single drop of alcohol.

Looking back…

I didn’t hate clubs.

I hated thinking I had to enjoy them the same way as everyone else.

And that wasn’t the only thing I realized I’d been wrong about.

I’m eating at this restaurant right after arriving in Poland.

A group of boys walks by.

I didn’t notice them looking at me until they almost walked past.

Then I looked at them for a second, and then they yell…

Lamine Yamal!

Everyone looks at them…

then at me.

For a split second…

I think they’re making fun of me.

I'd heard stories about Poland.

Then I look at them.

They’re smiling.

So I smile back.

Yeah… I won the World Cup with Spain.

…

They burst out laughing.

I shake every one of their hands.

Then everyone goes back to their dinner.

Looking back…

I almost let someone else’s story become my own.

But there was one place I still carried another stereotype...

I thought strip clubs were just about partying.

Then my friend took me into a few in Poland.

Every night we were approached by like ten strip club promoters…

Every place offered free entry.

Then they tried to sell us drinks.

My friend predicted every tactic before it happened.

It was like watching a script.

Even knowing the script...

I still ended up buying one of the dancers a €60 drink.

…

It was fascinating.

The last price was for €4000, to make “Dreams Come True”

…

But something surprised me.

When I actually spoke to most of the dancers…

We didn’t talk about anything sexual.

We talked like normal people.

We talked about ordinary life.

About the world.

About normal things.

That’s when I realized…

Behind every business…

Behind every uniform…

Behind every stereotype…

There’s still a human being.

Walking through Gdansk, it’s so beautiful. The architecture, knowing it was mostly destroyed during World War 2.

The food was amazing, I had the best ramen and tried some Pierogi.

The streets…

Were safe at 3 am…

The freedom I feel, as I’m able to do this…

I realized...

I could build a life where this isn’t a vacation.

It’s just Monday.

…

I went to Poland expecting a holiday.

I came home questioning assumptions.

About places.

About people.

About myself.

Every time I travel...

my world gets a little bigger.

And every time my world gets bigger...

I come home wanting to build a life...

where I never stop exploring it.

I thought they chose work over me.

Every time they said they were too tired...

I started wondering if they even wanted to spend time with me.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized...

I became exactly like them.

My father is a teacher and my mother works at a hotel in another city…

Most of the time, I come home from school alone.

And I start playing video games or watching social media alone…

Every time I hear my parents come home, I greet them…

But they tell me they’re too tired to play.

Not today, Alex. Sorry.

I tell myself that I understand. But a part of me feels like they don’t want to spend time with me.

Why are they spending so much time at work, and so little time with me?

When I was way younger, they would spend all their time on me…

What changed?

…

I hear the door open, I don’t react…

I’m just going to ignore them when they come home, not even ask.

I will just play video games by myself…

Then one day...

I stopped looking at what my parents weren’t doing...

and started noticing what they were going through.

…

And my mother especially, is struggling quite a bit at work…

She leaves before the sun comes up.

She comes home after it goes down.

Her smile looked the same...

but her body didn’t.

She comes home, but instead of ignoring them. I run down…

Mammi, when I’m 18. You will never have to work again!

…

I didn’t know how.

But I promised myself...

One day I’d help them.

…

Years later...

I spent fourteen hours a day making videos.

My wrists hurt.

My family asked me to watch movies.

To go out to dinner.

To spend time together.

Every answer was the same.

Sorry... I have to work.

…

I have deleted almost all my friend off social media.

I’m only focused on work, and then when I’m done, I just feel so tired.

Alex, would you come spend time with us?

Sorry, have to work.

Okay. Have fun.

…

I hope they understand that I’m doing it for them.

But now I notice, I have less time with the family.

Then one evening...

I looked up from my computer.

My wrists hurt.

I was exhausted.

I hadn’t spent time with my family in weeks.

And for the first time...

I understood them.

…

The thing I thought they cared about more than me...

was me.

…

I spent years thinking work was taking my parents away from me.

I never realized...

Work was the way they loved me.

…

The most time I ever spent away from my family...

was when I cared about them the most.

…

Every hour they sacrificed...

became another opportunity for me and my sister.

…

As children...

we judge love by presence.

As adults...

we realize that sometimes love looks like sacrifice.

I didn’t understand my parents because I’d never lived their life.

Sometimes life doesn’t teach us by explaining.

It teaches us by making us become the person we once misunderstood.

I remember crying for hours because I thought my life was over.

When my parents got divorced, I thought my family had just broken apart.

Looking back, I don’t think that’s what happened at all.

My parents are like angels to me.

They’re the best people I know.

I smile all the time.

I think everything is perfect.

But I had forgotten that they had a lot of arguments when I was younger.

I’m fourteen now.

Something feels different.

The house is quieter.

Conversations end faster.

Even when nobody is arguing, it feels like everyone is trying not to.

The silence is louder than when they’re actually talking.

I don’t know what’s wrong.

I just know that something feels different.

Then they laugh together.

They kiss.

And I think...

Things are great.

…

I know something is wrong, I just can’t put my words into it.

They have split up before, but they are still married.

I think this time things will be better.

No arguments have happened recently.

I will focus on my life and on school.

One day, my parents talk to me and my sister and tell us the news…

They have decided to have a divorce…

My father is moving out…

But my father moving out wasn’t the worst part.

The thing I’ve been trying not to believe...

is real.

…

I end up crying for hours…

Wondering how my life is going to go…

What will I do without my parents being together?

…

I keep wondering if I did something wrong.

Maybe if I’d behaved better.

Maybe if I’d caused fewer problems.

Maybe if I’d gotten better grades.

Maybe if I’d listened more.

Maybe they’d still be together.

My mother tells me it isn’t my fault.

But I don’t understand.

If they stayed together because of me...

then why wasn’t I enough to keep them together?

I’m still shocked...

even though part of me has been expecting it for years.

Years pass.

I keep thinking my parents divorced in one afternoon.

Looking back...

I don’t think they did.

I think they divorced a little every day.

Every argument.

Every silent dinner.

Every conversation that never happened.

The papers just made it official.

…

Every time they smiled at each other.

I could sense it wasn’t real.

…

After every argument, I thought it would always be the last one.

But the arguments were basically the only time they really talked.

…

They always tried to stay together, because they knew exactly how the divorce would affect me and my sister.

Looking back, I think they were trying to hold together something that had already fallen apart.

They stayed together because they thought it was best for me and my sister.

Looking back, I understand why.

But I also understand why they couldn’t keep doing it forever.

Today, they both seem more at peace than they ever did together.

The divorce wasn’t the beginning of my parents falling apart.

It was the end of pretending they hadn’t already.

I thought the divorce broke my family.

Years later, I realized...

it stopped breaking it.

I had more money than I’d ever imagined.

four years later...

I realized money wasn’t the destination.

It was the beginning.

I’m constantly dreaming about starting up my YouTube gaming channel. I always wanted to be a YouTuber.

But I really didn’t have any concrete reason.

Until, I saw my mother coming home from work exhausted every single day.

She would leave the house at 4:30 am when it’s dark, and come back home when it’s darker.

Every time she would come home from work, I would tell her.

Mammi, I love you. I promise when I’m 18 you never have to work again!

She must’ve thought…

How is my twelve-year-old son going to do that? But I really believe him.

…

Always smiling even when she was tired from work.

I’m taking a year off before high school to seriously commit to YouTube.

Going through school to help my mother would take too long…

I’m studying thumbnails, making all kinds of videos.

I didn’t know how I would build a sustainable gaming channel to retire my mother.

I just kept on uploading…

But after months, I checked my analytics…

277 Subscribers.

What am I doing?

What if it doesn’t work out?

Why isn’t the channel growing?

I’m thinking that maybe I should just go back to high school, now I’ve probably wasted one year. One year where my mother has to work longer.

At least with a degree, even if it’s slower—I can get some money.

…

But after one year of doing YouTube full time, something happened.

The channel started doing better and better…

I’m literally pumping out videos.

I’m literally getting carpel tunnel from working so hard.

But I’ve never been happier, I could see the face of my mother every time another video would do well.

I’m spending 14 hours working some days.

One and a half years later, I had gone from making almost $0. To my first $10K. At 17 years old, in March of 2023.

I had dropped out of high school because I believed I could make a proper business out of YouTube.

I continue to work though, because I can’t retire my mother on just a months of proof.

I need to be able to have a system to make $10K a month.

Then I can actually retire my mother.

…

A few months later at 18—I hit my first $25K month with my YouTube gaming channel.

It was almost unbelievable.

And now, it has made almost $600,000

My mother’s face that day is the best thing I’ve ever experienced.

Thank you, Alex. I’m so incredibly proud of you.

…

I almost forget, that I wasn’t doing this for the money.

I was doing it to buy back freedom for my mother.

…

This is it, how can life be any better?

I have the perfect job, with my family happy.

And I can just be happy and free now.

I genuinely believed happiness was waiting on the other side of success.

Money changed my life.

I bought the house we lived in.

My mother never had to worry about bills again.

I could work whenever I wanted, from wherever I wanted.

Money solved almost every problem I thought money could solve.

A few years later, I’m working on my gaming channel again.

But after finishing the video,

I go back to bed.

I watch YouTube Shorts.

I scroll for hours.

Hours would disappear.

Then I’d look at the clock.

Another day had gone by.

And I couldn’t even tell you what I’d done.

I would publish a video every 5 days. But only work the last day or two.

I’m just wasting time until the next upload…

Months would pass by without anything changing

…

I’m watching people younger than me making millions of dollars.

How are they doing so well? I also want those cars.

Maybe I should do that business?

I should go into drop shipping, then I can make more money.

…

No no, I love my job. I should just do this forever.

…

What if my gaming channel dies? How long can I do this for?

I love my gaming channel, but I always feel like I want a deeper connection with my audience.

I’m just making entertainment videos, but I really don’t know my viewers.

My worth from people comes mostly from my video ideas…

And after years… I’m starting to slowly run out of video ideas…

…

I started becoming really sad every time a video would perform bad.

I would come up some mornings and my mother would ask

What’s wrong, Alex?

I would just say, it’s just one of those days.

But I staked my whole life on my gaming channel.

…

I start feeling a bit empty,

Somehow thinking that I should just do this, but my heart keeps telling me something else.

I loved making gaming videos.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling there were many parts of myself I’d never explored.

But it’s so comfortable, why do I need to change?

I barely work and I make boatloads of money.

I should just keep watching movies, watching youtube shorts…

…

I stopped living to grow…

and started taking the freedom I had worked so hard for…

for granted.

I’m constantly trying different businesses, somehow I feel like I want something more.

I have all the freedom and time to start a new business and grow. But I don’t know…

I don’t know what to do…

…

Then something happened I couldn’t solve by working harder.

I went through my first breakup.

It forced me to stop distracting myself.

For years, whenever life felt uncertain...

I’d work.

This time...

Working didn’t fix anything.

…

For the first time in years...

I wasn’t trying to become more successful.

I was trying to understand myself.

That’s when I started reading.

That’s when I picked up the piano again.

That’s when I started going for walks.

Not because they would make me money...

But because I genuinely enjoyed them.

…

Okay… Now I’m actually going to work on something that I love to do, that I can do for decades.

I don’t know what that is yet, but I will start something.

And whatever happens, I know I’ll try my best, and trust that I find my way through life.

…

At 21, I then stumbled on this business and other ventures.

And I actually think I’ve never been happier than right now.

Looking back...

Becoming rich at 17 wasn’t the destination.

It was the runway.

…

It took years after retiring my mother…

And feeling lost because I thought my worth only came from my work.

But I was able to finally find what I loved to do…

The piano…

The gym…

Chess…

Reading…

Spending more time with friends and family…

Building businesses that align more with me…

Learning everything that I want to, without financial worry.

…

Money gave me freedom.

Freedom gave me something I’d never had before.

The chance to discover who I wanted to become.

Getting rich at 17 gave me the runway.

At 21...

I finally learned how to fly.

I had only recently started playing, but I had practiced constantly online.

Then I sat down at the club and lost.

And lost again.

I won one game out of six.

These people were destroying me.

So I went home and practiced everything I could before the next session.

I played more games.

Studied them afterwards.

Watched chess videos.

Then I returned the next week and still played badly.

By the end, I almost didn’t want to shake my opponent’s hand.

Not because they had done anything wrong.

I was embarrassed that I had tried so hard and still looked like a beginner.

It wasn’t just chess.

When I started driving...

When I started the gym...

Every new hobby followed the same script.

When I started learning to drive, I thought I would need five hours of lessons.

Every additional lesson felt like proof that I was learning too slowly.

It eventually took around twenty hours before I felt genuinely capable.

But by then, I couldn’t appreciate that I had learned to drive.

I could only think about how quickly I should have done it.

…

When I started going to the gym, I felt so weak.

I always checked after every session, if my weight had increased…

And I kept on wondering, why I can’t lift heavier today…

How long is this going to take?

I never let myself be a beginner.

…

Every time I started something new, I expected myself to learn like someone who had already been doing it for years.

I wasn’t comparing myself to where I started.

I was comparing myself to an imaginary future version of myself.

When I started my YouTube gaming channel, things felt painfully slow.

It took months before I had any meaningful traction…

…

Two years later, when I reached 100,000 subscribers, something changed.

I had built my identity around being ahead. Someone who learned quickly and succeeded young.

People kept telling me how successful I was.

How far ahead I was for my age.

And eventually, I started believing that success wasn’t merely something I had achieved.

It was who I was.

…

Whenever a video ranked tenth out of my last ten uploads, I didn’t see one underperforming video.

I saw evidence that I was losing whatever had made me successful.

Every video had to be first.

I no longer wanted to succeed.

I expected success.

When I was inexperienced, failure meant I was learning.

Once I believed I was experienced, failure felt like exposure.

The more successful I became, the less permission I gave myself to struggle.

The reality was simple.

One video underperformed.

I couldn’t play one piano passage yet.

My channel was still healthy.

But my mind added conclusions to every fact.

I should have known better.

I should be further ahead.

Maybe I was never as capable as I thought.

Life wasn’t telling me I was behind.

I was.

When I returned to Liebestraum, I made one rule.

I was no longer allowed to ask how quickly I could finish it.

I would slow every difficult passage down.

I would practice without turning every mistake into a judgment.

And I would try to enjoy being unable to play it yet.

Strangely, once I stopped trying to learn it quickly, I learned it faster than I expected.

The piece was never learned all at once.

It was built through hundreds of ordinary attempts that felt insignificant while I was making them.

…

I thought patience meant moving slowly.

It doesn’t.

…

Patience means acting without demanding immediate proof that the action is working.

Maybe I was never running out of time.

Maybe I just never trusted time to do its job.

They talked to strangers.
They started YouTube.
They played piano.
They walked into the gym.
They started businesses.

I thought confidence came first.

I was wrong.

I’m trying to start my gaming channel full time for my mother who would come home exhausted for work.

But I don’t know where to start. I don’t trust myself to know what I’m doing.

So I’m constantly checking the views…

Constantly judging the comments people posted…

And sometimes deleting videos because I thought they were useless…

Where do I even go from here? How am I supposed to build a channel like the YouTubers I admire?

They’re all so confident and popular.

Maybe…

I’m just never going to make it, I don’t even have any confidence.

I wasn’t only trying to improve the videos. I was using every upload to decide whether I belonged on YouTube.

I’m doing my first practical driving test, if I complete this I can finally drive a car.

But…

I’m so nervous, my hands are shaking.

My hands are shaking, and the steering wheel is covered in sweat.

I’m also driving in another city where I’m not used too.

…

As I’m trying to reverse into a corner on a street.

I completely mess up.

The instructor says…

Try again.

But I almost steer off the road.

I can tell she’s annoyed, by her voice.

…

I end up failing the test, crying my heart out because I have to call my father…

Tell him to pick me up, because I failed.

…

Second driving test

Failed.

Third, fourth.

Failed.

…

Eventually, I end up getting a driving test in the city where I practiced all these months.

All of the sudden, I’m driving like a formula 1 driver.

I’m so fed up with all the failures, I decide to not focus on all the times I’ve failed…

I’m done thinking about the worst that can happen on the road.

All the turns I did correctly now,

All the times I indicated…

All the times I maintained the correct speed.

Why was I so nervous?

I hadn’t suddenly become a better driver overnight. But for the first time, I stopped treating every mistake like proof that I couldn’t drive.

…

Alex… You’ve passed, congratulations.

…

After 5 attempts.

After five attempts, I almost start crying again.

Not because I have to tell my father I failed.

Because I finally get to tell him I passed.

I’m trying to play this piano piece for the first time.

I haven’t learnt any notes, haven’t learnt how the piano works…

I just watch a tutorial on how to play this piece River Flows in You.

And I almost get overwhelmed and tell myself to quit…

But I just press the next note, memorize the next set of chords…

All of the sudden, I can play ten seconds of the piece.

As long as I keep on moving forward, through all the mistakes…

I will eventually learn the whole piece.

…

I’m learning this extremely difficult piece years later.

I’m watching and thinking this is impossible…

Liebestraum by Liszt.

I give up the piece because it looks too difficult.

…

I’m trying to look for a new piece.

But none of the other pieces feel right. I still want to learn the one I abandoned.

Maybe the challenge will be worth it, let me just focus on practicing the ten seconds ahead.

…

I get to the most difficult section of the piece.

But because of the patterns and foundations I learned earlier, I pick it up surprisingly quickly.

I end up learning this part extremely quickly.

I jump up…

Clap my hands aggressively while smiling…

How the hell did I manage to learn something I thought was impossible…

The piece was still difficult. But difficulty no longer felt like evidence that I couldn’t learn it.

A few years later, I upload another video.

It ranks ten out of ten.

The worst-performing video of my last ten uploads.

Years ago, I would have stared at the views, read every comment like a judgment and wondered whether I should delete it.

Now I open the analytics.

The idea was too narrow.

The title wasn’t clear enough.

The opening lost viewers.

I write down what failed and begin the next video.

The disappointment is still there.

It just no longer decides what I do.

After hundreds of uploads, the gaming channel has nearly 200,000 subscribers.

There were great videos, terrible videos and everything between them.

I stopped asking whether I was confident enough to become a YouTuber.

I uploaded, studied what failed and made the next video.

Looking back, I was never confident before I started.

Not before uploading.

Not before taking the driving test.

Not before sitting at the piano.

I thought confidence was something certain people naturally possessed.

Something you needed before doing difficult things.

But confidence was never waiting for me at the beginning.

It was being built every time I acted without it.

Every failed upload taught me something.

Every driving test made the road more familiar.

Every wrong piano note made the next one easier.

Passing the test didn’t suddenly create my confidence.

Learning the piece didn’t create it either.

The failures had already been building it.

They proved I could feel embarrassed, disappointed and uncertain.

And still return.

…

I didn’t earn confidence by proving that I would always succeed.

I earned it by proving that failure wouldn’t stop me.

…

Maybe confidence isn’t believing everything will work.

Maybe it’s knowing that even when it doesn’t, you’ll continue.