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.

…

At 17...

I thought I’d reached the destination.

Looking back...

it was only the runway.

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.

Eventually, I stopped asking whether those things were true. I simply accepted them as who I was.

But years later, I realized something that completely changed how I understood personality.

What if the personality you’ve accepted for years isn’t who you are?

What if it’s simply the one you’ve practiced the most?

I’m studying for school at home, I can barely get by.

I check my clock…

10 minutes.

I stop studying, hop on my bed. And procrastinate.

I always thought I was stupid and lazy.

I don’t want to study for this test today.

My mother tells me I’m so smart but I barely work.

She tells me I always refused to study, and my sister would always be the studious one.

I’m just stupid…

…

My mother hears a lovely tune from downstairs.

She thinks she’s dreaming…

She puts on her robe and walks downstairs with a drowsy expression…

There she sees me, playing the piano.

She is so impressed,

Wow Alex, how have you learnt so much so quick?

You’re so smart.

…

For once I had to agree a little bit.

She had come home from work seven hours before.

And, she saw me practicing this piece, River Flows in You.

By 7 hours I had already learnt most of the piece.

I only started playing because I wanted a better grade in music.

I never expected something I did for school...

to become the only schoolwork I genuinely wanted to do.

…

I end up getting the end of year grades.

Music: A

For years I thought I was lazy. But when something genuinely interested me, I practiced for seven hours without anyone asking me to.

Nothing about me changed that day.

The only thing that changed was what I cared about.

I’m in my best friends face. All day I have so much energy.

I constantly try to wrestle with them…

Get their attention.

Just try to be annoying or funny.

Most of the time they get along with it…

But they always called me weird…

Alex, you’re so weird hah.

I didn’t even take offense to it most of the time…

I thought it was who I am…

But eventually, I wanted to become “normal” like them.

So I decide to act normal for a few hours…

…

I’m sitting there, not saying anything…

Not trying to do anything funny.

It’s so different from who I am…

After a few hours I have to give up.

I physically can’t be “normal”

Maybe…

I’m just weird…

I didn’t merely think I was weird. I stopped letting people know me because I believed knowing me would make them uncomfortable.

…

I never knew it would affect every interaction with people.

I’m in a grocery story, trying to talk to the cashier…

I’m messing up all my words, I can barely talk to her.

Actually, almost everywhere I’ve started becoming less social.

I can barely get my thoughts out… and when I do it’s slurry and weird.

I had distanced myself from people, because I didn’t want to bother anyone.

The less I spent time with people, the more normal I would seem…

Because then I would show less of my weird sides.

As long as I avoid talking, I take no risks.

I didn’t know that my social skills would go through the dump.

…

When I wouldn’t speak…

My parents would call me a shy person.

Oh Alex, he is just a bit shy… He’ll come around.

So naturally, I acted like the shy and weird person.

The less I spoke, the less social practice I got.

And the identity started creating evidence for itself.

For years, I never questioned it.

Then I went somewhere nobody knew who I was.

To a new environment where different behaviors created different personalities.

I’m in South Africa, my father has been here 17 times. He loves the people here…

Okay…

Well I don’t really talk much to people so I’ll let him talk to everyone.

…

I’m in this restaurant in this place called Langebaan.

We sit beside the lagoon as the sun begins disappearing over the water.

A couple sits down next to us.

And before my father says anything...

I start speaking to them.

And immediately I just get a good feeling for them, and without my father…

I start speaking to them.

…

Next thing I know the sunset has fallen,

I had spoken more in a few hours there than I had in months back home.

Everyone at the restaurant genuinely wanted to talk and get to know about me…

And all of the sudden, I spoke like the opposite of a shy person.

…

I would dance with random strangers…

Go up to people and initiate conversations with them…

Try to understand everything about them…

Nothing magical happened.

I simply behaved differently long enough that new evidence appeared.

Maybe there wasn’t one real version of me hiding underneath.

Maybe there were many possible versions of me... and whichever one I practiced became the one that felt natural.

Looking back, shy, weird, and lazy weren’t permanent facts about me.

Those weren’t facts. They were conclusions.

Then I acted according to those conclusions until they began to feel like facts.

I spent years thinking my personality explained my behavior.

I never considered that my behavior was creating my personality.

…

Every time I spoke first, stayed in the conversation, or sat down at the piano, I
collected evidence for another version of myself. Eventually, that version began feeling natural too.

…

I kept waiting for change to feel natural before believing it was real.

But everything natural about me had once been practiced.

…

Maybe you’re not discovering who you are.

Maybe you’re practicing who you’ll become.

Looking back...

I probably was.

But the only person who believed being different was a bad thing...

was me.

everyone around me was choosing high schools.

Visiting campuses.

Talking about classes.

Making plans together.

I was the only one staying home to build a YouTube channel.

I’m thinking,

Why shouldn’t I just do what everyone else is doing?

My life seems so uncertain, to skip a year and try a business.

They all looked so certain.

So coordinated.

Like they were following a path everyone understood.

Mine only made sense to me.

…

Maybe I’m just different.

I try to talk to classmates…

But I mess up my speech..

My thoughts would outrun my words.

And sometimes I just distance myself.

The more isolated I am, the less I talk to people…

The less I show my negative sides.

…

My best friends always called me weird.

I used to want to wrestle with them everyday.

I would say things that were so different, it was almost funny.

And I would constantly try to get attention.

Every time I was told I was weird…

I tried to behave normal for a few hours.

But I just couldn’t…

As I’m working on my YouTube gaming business…

I work as hard as I can.

Studying relentlessly…

I refused to give up unless someone physically stole my PC.

…

While everyone else was studying for exams...

I was spending twelve hours a day learning YouTube.

While everyone else wanted to fit in...

I was becoming obsessed with building something.

While everyone else wanted certainty...

I was willing to gamble years on an impossible goal.

I thought everyone else was normal because I could only see the parts of themselves they showed the world.

I could see every part of myself.

The fears.

The awkwardness.

The ambition.

The obsession.

The loneliness.

I wasn’t comparing myself to other people.

I was comparing everything I knew about myself...

to almost nothing I knew about them.

Of course I felt different.

Everyone was different.

I had just trained myself to notice the differences that made me feel inferior...

and ignore the ones that made me valuable.

Being different was never the problem. Believing it made me less was.

I worked 14 hours a day.

Every morning I opened my analytics.

Nothing had changed.

Looking back,

If I had kept working that hard, nothing might have changed.

Maybe I wasn't working on the real problem.

I’m sitting at my desk after taking a year off from school.

I had to make this YouTube gaming channel work. For my mother who was exhausted from her 9-5.

I’m sitting and working as hard as I can, and while things look like they’re moving.

Almost everything I upload gets minimal views.

I genuinely thought the videos were good.

I open my analytics after months of work.

277 Subscribers.

My views are going down.

Why isn’t the channel growing?

I’m literally doing everything I can.

…

But something had to change.

I was making the same videos, mostly for myself.

Same mistakes with the ideas.

Eventually I stopped asking,

How many hours did I work?

And started asking,

What did I actually change?

…

I wake up one morning after working just a few hours the day before.

I’m so tired I can barely open my eyes.

But I glance over at the analytics.

What the hell…

WHAT.

I’m shaking, I tried something different.

Something that had worked before...

But this time I finally understood why it worked.

…

I stopped asking,

What do I want to make?

And started asking,

Why would someone click this?

And kept changing how I do everything,

Better packaging.

Better storytelling.

Listening to feedback.

Iterating.

…

I’m shaking.

It worked.

Finally.

This is it.

I figured YouTube out.

My mother will be free.

...

A few months later...

The views started dropping again.

I’m on vacation in Croatia.

And I was about to start high school after taking a year off.

But the channel wasn’t doing so well.

I had gone back to working hard again, because I thought what went viral is what I should do forever.

But I actually needed a sustainable audience, and revenue.

Okay, I need to start thinking…

…

I’m on this boat in Croatia.

No laptop.

No analytics.

No comments.

Just the Mediterranean stretching to the horizon.

For the first time in months...

I wasn’t trying to make another video.

I was trying to understand why the last hundred hadn’t worked.

…

And I just look up into the sky and say this one sentence

I Spent 100 Days…

…

I started studying what actually worked.

I stopped protecting my own ideas.

I let better ideas replace my own.

I used my unique strengths.

And with that I started making videos that were unique to my game.

I never knew my whole life would change because of the thinking I did, whilst on vacation.

…

I never really worked during that wonderful time,

but it was the most important work I ever did

I had iterated for so long I finally found a way to sustain myself.

Not just for months, but years.

I had finally built something that didn’t depend on one lucky video.

People came back.

Again.

And again.

For the first time...

Growth became sustainable.

…

My mother has never been happier.

And while I had to work 14 hour days to realize that working hard didn’t work.

I now only work about 4 hours a day, whilst spending other time ideating and iterating.

Because if I spend all my time working...

I stop doing the one thing that actually changes my work.

The hardest work wasn’t working harder.

It was admitting the way I’d been thinking wasn’t working anymore.

I thought things would never change.

Looking back...

They couldn’t.

Because every day...

I was becoming better at doing the same thing.

The day my thinking changed...

Everything else finally did.

Looking back, avoiding them would have.

Teachers are talking to my classmates and asking them what they want to do after school.

And they all are going into high school.

My classmates ask me what I want to do.

I just say,

I think I wanna be a computer engineer.

My teachers ask the same question.

But towards the end of school,

I actually think I’ll take a gap year off.

Most people say,

Isn’t that risky?

I thought the exact same thing as them.

Why would I waste one year?

I wanted to see what I could do in one year with YouTube.

Because if it worked, maybe I could retire my mother from a job that was exhausting her.

…

I thought taking a gap year was risky.

It never crossed my mind that staying in school might be risky too.

Looking back, almost every decision that changed my life felt risky at the time.

I’m spending hours working on my YouTube channel.

And then later in bed that night, I spend hours thinking about why I’m working on it.

Why didn’t I just stay in school?

It’s been months and nothing has really worked.

I open my analytics.

Every night I asked myself the same question.

What if everyone was right?

Maybe I was wasting a year.

…

Maybe I should just go back to school.

My channel had barely grown.

277 subscribers.

But then another question kept coming back.

What if I never tried?

Which version of my life would I regret more?

I’m walking up to this girl and tell her.

Hello, I think you’re really cute. Is it okay if I get your number?

…

No, sorry. I have a boyfriend.

Those were her exact words.

…

As I walked away, I thought,

Why did I even ask?

Rejection hurt in the moment.

Wondering would’ve hurt for years.

…

Then there was the driver’s license.

I almost didn’t do that either.

It felt risky.

Now I can’t imagine the freedom I’d have missed without it.

My old friends, acquaintances and family all say the same thing.

Wow Alex, you already have your driver’s license.

Your own business.

And you’re taking care of your mother.

She must be so proud of you.

…

And for a moment, I almost feel a bit proud of myself.

All the stress and time spent on the driver’s license.

All the years spent building up my YouTube gaming business.

And the time spent thinking about my mother being free.

…

I really regretted starting all these things, I thought it was too risky.

That I was wasting my time.

That if I mess up I’m behind.

The more I messed up...

the more I trusted myself to handle the next risk.

I sometimes imagine the other version of my life.

I wake up early.

I put on my university backpack.

I study to become a computer engineer.

My mother still goes to work.

Every evening she comes home exhausted.

Her knees hurt even more.

I keep telling myself...

One day.

One day I’ll help her.

One day I’ll start YouTube.

One day I’ll try.

But one day quietly becomes ten years.

…

Every time I saw someone chasing their dream...

I would’ve wondered what would’ve happened if I’d taken mine.

Why didn’t I take that gap year and tried?

It would only have been a year

I would have stared at my desk…

I would've dreamt every day about what would've happened if I'd taken that risk.

…

I thought taking risks would ruin my life.

Looking back...

Avoiding them would’ve.

Because I thought I was choosing between risk...

and safety.

I wasn’t.

The risks I could see were temporary.

The one I couldn’t see was becoming someone who never tried.

Looking back, I spent most of it somewhere else.

Sometimes in a future that hadn’t happened yet.

Sometimes in a past I couldn’t stop replaying.

Almost never in the moment right in front of me.

I’m on vacation in Prague with my best friend. And we’re only there for about 5 days.

But as we’re having fun and enjoying ourselves.

Exploring the city.

Tasting the local food.

Listening to the music.

I always think to myself…

Ah we only have 4 days left.

And then 3 days left.

and then 2.

And I say this every day to my friend.

…

He tells me in a concerned voice,

Yes of course Alex, but that’s then. Just enjoy today.

I keep thinking about the future where I’m not having fun with my friends.

I wasn’t leaving Prague in four days.

I had already left it in my mind.

I’m about to do my first driving test, so I can finally have my driver’s license.

But as I’m waiting for the instructor. I’m thinking to myself.

Oh my god, what if I fail.

I’ve never driven in this place before.

What if I crash?

As we head off to drive, things go pretty well.

I’m indicating at the right time.

Following traffic, although a bit slowly.

And reading all the signs.

…

Then we get to this small country road, where I’m supposed to reverse…

I put the gear in reverse.

And I literally over steer and almost reverse off the road.

The instructor says,

Try again.

Now I’m thinking,

Oh my god I messed up…

I can’t mess this up again.

She’s going to think I shouldn’t be driving.

…

I try to reverse again, really slowly.

I wasn't driving anymore. I was watching myself drive.

She was still talking.

But I wasn’t listening anymore.

I was too busy watching myself fail.

Now the instructor gets a bit annoyed.

…

This went on for a few more tries, I never got it right.

Of course when I got back to the driving school, I had failed.

And I was crying so much. I was so afraid to call my dad and tell him I failed.

I’m replaying my drivers test in my head for hours and days after. Wondering what is wrong with me.

I was so much in my head predicting what could go wrong. Yet I couldn’t predict the very thing that actually went wrong.

And when the moment was over, the people didn’t care. All was good.

Reality only happened once. But my mind kept living it hundreds of times.

Looking back, I realized it wasn’t just happening during driving tests.

It was happening everywhere.

Before something happened, I imagined it.

While it happened, I judged it.

After it happened, I replayed it.

My body was always in the present.

My attention almost never was.

I’m in South Africa, and I’m in this wonderful national park, with a hotel.

I’m only there for 3 days, but this time I’m thinking to myself.

What a lovely place to be.

I start talking to all the staff, telling them how wonderful this place is…

I learn their names.

I talk to them.

I try to understand them.

…

When we’re out on a safari, I truly just look at the animals and the nature around.

For more than 10 hours we were out…

And I’m just enjoying.

I’m of course taking a few pictures.

I take a deep breath.

And for the first time in years...

I actually notice the air.

…

Oh my god look at that lion!

That is the most beautiful elephant I've seen.

Wow that’s an eagle!

I don’t think about the time when I’m home and not able to enjoy this.

I just think about this present moment with the family and the nature.

And normally, I would’ve been counting how many days were left.

This time, I didn’t think about tomorrow for once.

Nothing about the world had changed.

The only thing that changed was where I put my attention.

The animals weren’t more beautiful than Prague.

I was just finally there to see them.

That’s when I realized...

I wasn’t losing Prague.

I was losing today.

Prague had never been the problem.

It was just the first place I noticed what my mind had been doing all along.

…

Years later, I finally understood what my friend was trying to tell me in Prague.

“Just enjoy today, Alex.”

I thought he was talking about Prague.

He was talking about life.

Because I wasn’t living my life.

I was living everywhere except where it was happening.

I developed hemorrhoids.

Looking back...

I thought I was an anxious person.

I spent years trying to fix my anxiety.

I never realized I was fighting futures that didn’t exist.

Let me explain.

I’m about to go on stage for a school musical, I’m not really looking at our performance.

I’m sitting in the back lines repeating my lines over and over, I couldn’t stop thinking about not messing up.

I can not mess this up.

This has to be perfect.

I hope I still have more time.

My stomach starts to hurt as my throat slowly closes in.

I go on stage, but quickly. I move into my role as fast as possible.

Even though it was a short time I was on stage, I performed quite well and was expressive.

I go off stage and wonder, why did I spend so much time and energy hurting myself?

It all went well.

I sometimes used to be anxious about things in the future that I would get a severe stomach ache.

I constantly go to the bathroom, and every time I try to stop feeling anxious, I think more about it. Which makes it worse.

I end up developing hemorrhoids and have to stay in bed for a few days.

I don’t tell my parents the real reason as to why I had hemorrhoids.

I wonder what’s wrong with me.

Why I am not able to think normally.

But I had to tell them, because I was in so much pain in bed.

They buy some medicine and it ends up getting better.

I tell myself I will never let it get so bad that I have to use the bathroom.

Well..

That didn’t work.

As I’m about to fly home from a vacation alone, with my sister.

I feel so incredibly anxious.

How am I supposed to fly without my parents?

The same symptoms start to develop.

Literally in the airport and on the plane. I had to use the bathroom multiple times.

I’m sitting in the plane when everybody is sleeping. But I can’t.

Eyes are open, I don’t want to wake up my sister.

But I have to go to the bathroom.

No no not my sister. I just want her to rest.

But I whisper and wake her up:

I need to use the bathroom.

I honestly thought this was just my life now.

That I would always be the person who couldn’t travel.

Who couldn’t relax.

Who couldn’t stop thinking.

For years, I thought something was wrong with me.

Then I picked up Psycho-Cybernetics.

Books didn't change my life. They helped me understand it.

It wasn’t life-changing because it gave me a technique.

It was life-changing because it helped me understand what I had been doing.

I wasn’t just anxious.

I was constantly living in futures that hadn’t happened yet.

And every time I tried to escape that feeling...

I pulled myself even deeper into those imagined futures.

…

I’m about to travel all alone from Sweden to Germany.

Have to drive down there and take care of everything myself.

I felt it coming again.

But this time...

I didn’t try to make it disappear.

I sat down at the piano.

I watched the sunset.

I let the feeling be there.

Eventually...

It passed.

…

I made a big mistake on the road, wasted a lot of time.

I felt it coming again.

My first instinct was to stop it.

To make it go away.

But this time...

I didn’t.

…

I still felt a tiny bit anxious, but I arrive safely.

And this time, for once. I finally felt like I wasn’t trapped by my anxiety.

Like I was free from my mind, so I could have freedom out in the world.

Looking back...

Those books didn’t remove my anxiety.

They changed how I understood it.

I realized I had spent years fighting futures that never happened.

Every time I imagined what could go wrong...

My body reacted as if it was happening right now.

I still get anxious sometimes.

But I don’t spend hours trying to survive a future that doesn’t exist.

I’d rather spend that time living in the present that does.

Looking back...

I wasn’t.

I just kept mistaking being confused for being incapable.

It took me years to realize why.

When I was five years old

I’m bored in class, everyone else is playing.

I take a piece of paper

And I write every number from 1 to 509 by hand.

My teacher had been teaching kindergarten for 24 years.

She suddenly started shouting.

I burst into tears.

I thought I had done something wrong.

…

My mother tells me years later, that I didn’t do anything wrong.

The teacher was just so surprised by what I did.

She had been teaching for 24 years and had never seen a child like me.

So how did I end up believing I was stupid?

I’m trying to study for a test…

But just like every other test I’ve studied for, I can’t concentrate.

I can’t just focus for 15 minutes on this subject.

I think to myself that I’m just too stupid or lazy for this.

But my mother keeps saying:

You’re so smart, Alex.

She’s wrong.

At school, every time were doing the test in class.

I believe that the smartest kids finished the fastest.

One student puts his pencil down.

Then another.

Then another.

I’m only halfway through.

How are they already finished?

I always try to do the test until time is really up.

Am I just slow?

Why can’t I just be smart and quick?

Why is it hard to memorize things for school.

The smartest kids in class are just smarter than me.

My mother is trying to sleep…

She hears a piece of music playing downstairs.

She thinks she’s dreaming, she puts on her bath robe and walks downstairs…

There, she sees the same kid playing the piano, 7 hours later after coming home.

She is complimenting me,

Wow Alex, you’re still learning?!

I’m surprised myself.

I had decided to learn this piano piece for school, River Flows in You.

I wanted to get a better grade in music, and I found out I really loved to play the piano.

I post the video on Facebook, and the teacher reacts to it.

I get an A in music.

Wait...

I couldn’t study for fifteen minutes at school.

But I just spent seven hours learning one song without anyone forcing me.

…

Maybe I wasn’t incapable of learning.

Maybe I’d only discovered something I actually wanted to learn for once.

After school, I decide to start a YouTube gaming channel.

I was tired of school and wanted to take a year off.

I would wake up thinking about thumbnails.

I’d fall asleep listening to YouTube advice.

14-hour days didn’t feel difficult.

Nobody had to tell me to study anymore.

I couldn’t stop.

Now people were asking me questions and wanted to know from me about YouTube.

Maybe I can focus, and be intelligent and knowledgeable about something.

Then it happened again.

Books.

Psychology.

Piano.

Writing.

Every year I learnt faster than the year before.

Looking back, I wasn’t stupid.

I had mistaken one environment for my entire potential.

School taught me how well I could perform in school.

I turned that into a judgment about who I was.

Life taught me something different.

The things I thought proved I was stupid...
were never proof at all.

Maybe you aren’t stupid either.

Maybe you’ve spent years confusing one environment...

with your entire potential.

I thought school was measuring my intelligence.

Looking back...

It was only measuring one small part of who I could become.

Looking back...

They weren’t.

They were watching themselves.

Every time I talked to someone...

All I could think about was myself.

I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if they think I’m ugly.

Did I say something weird?

And then hours later, I’m still thinking about them.

I’m replaying the conversation in my head.

They must be too.

Every time I walked through school...

I wondered what people thought of me.

If someone looked at me...

I thought something was wrong.

I lived as if everyone was watching.

Then I started noticing…

After talking to me.

They go back to their phones.

They talk about their families.

Their problems.

About what they struggle with themselves.

I wasn’t living in their minds.

I was living in my own.

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 thought everyone was watching me.

Looking back...

They weren’t watching me.

They were living their own lives.

And I finally started living mine.

Every night I’d replay conversations.

Worry about the future.

Analyze every decision.

Every tiny mistake.

But after years of overthinking...

I realized there was one thing I almost never questioned.

My life.

Every time I’m talking to someone outside, I constantly think about what I’m saying.

What do they think about me?

Am I speaking the right way?

What should I say next?

The night of that day, I lay in bed wondering.

Did I speak the right way?

What did they think of me?

It feels like 2 minutes,

I check my phone,

one hour has passed.

I’m thinking about my past, what did I do wrong?

I’m thinking about plans, how do I pick the right thing?

I’m thinking about sleeping, but because I can’t stop thinking about sleeping. I end up not sleeping.

Why can’t I just stop thinking for a minute and sleep?

I spent thousands of hours thinking.

But almost none of them changed my life.

I wasn’t living my life.

I was rehearsing it.

…

I worried about what people thought.

I worried about which high school to choose.

I worried about which career would be the right one.

I thought every decision would determine the rest of my life.

…

Then one day...

I stopped asking...

Which school should I choose?

And started asking...

What kind of life do I actually want?

…

Everybody is going the same path which is high school.

But I’m thinking about my mother whose exhausted from working every day.

Coming from work with a bad back.

Smiling despite the drowsy face.

Trying her best to support me and my sister.

Every day looked the same.

She never complained.

So I made a decision.

For the first time...

I wasn’t choosing between schools.

I was choosing between lives.

So I took a year off to focus on YouTube.

School wasn’t going to get me there fast enough.

I still overthought everything.

Did I make the biggest mistake of my life?

Should I have stayed in school?

Was I wasting a year?

Then I start noticing something.

I’m still overthinking.

But the questions were different.

My mind wasn’t only thinking about fear anymore.

It was thinking about building something.

I still couldn’t sleep.

But now I was thinking about tomorrows video.

Better ideas.

Better thumbnails.

The same mind that used to keep me stuck.

was helping me build something new.

For the first time.

I stopped rehearsing different versions of my life.

And I started living one.

Years later.

My mother comes home one day

and I tell her.

That she doesn’t have to work.

She looks at me and says…

Are you serious?!

Thank you.

I’ve never been more happy than when I heard those words.

In that moment...

I realized every hour I had spent building something had been worth it.

For years I asked...

What do people think of me?

Did I say something wrong?

What if I fail?

And none of those questions changed my life.

Then one day...

I asked a different question.

What kind of life do I actually want?

That question changed everything.

My overthinking never disappeared.

It finally had somewhere meaningful to go.

So I spent years trying to fix myself.

More confident.

More disciplined.

More outgoing.

More positive.

I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

Car horns.

People rushing past.

Everyone looking at their phones.

I keep my head down.

I never really want to interact with strangers here.

At my school, I feel different to others. I try to talk to them sometimes but it’s all very surface level.

I’m quiet and never talk to anyone.

Am I just so negative because I’m the odd one out?

What is wrong with me?

The city is busy, and there isn’t much nature.

But I’ve lived here for most of my life, this is where I belong.

Why can’t I fit in?

Everywhere I try to go here, I blame myself.

Because wherever I go.

There I am.

So naturally, I assumed life here would become easier if I changed.

Watching videos about better habits.

Motivational videos.

But they keep saying…

Just be yourself!

Well… myself won’t work here.

I try to become more outgoing.

However no matter what I do, everything is still the same.

No matter how much I improve or change.

I still feel like I don’t fit in.

How do I change to fit in with my classmates and the city?

Busy streets, traffic, and people always rushing somewhere.

Later my family moved to a house surrounded by forest.

Nothing about my personality changed, but somehow I felt calmer.

For the first time in my life, I lived outside the city.

The nature and the quietness fit the person who I was.

The people are a little bit more open here and smile more.

Every time I go out for a walk here.

People look up and smile.

I’m almost shocked, coming from the city. Nobody does that.

And when I smile back, it feels good.

I don’t have to try to be someone else.

I go on yet another vacation, I’ve been to many and felt like the odd one out.

But here in South Africa, I’m walking around and somehow I naturally start to talk more.

It’s easier to fit in here, it feels right.

I go to a random restaurant and the people there.

They come up to me and start asking me questions.

Hello there, how are you? :D

I’m actually shocked, and it’s not just the words.

It’s the energy.

People actually wanted to talk more.

And I start talking a little bit.

And then more.

And by the end, I had talked more in 2 weeks here.

Than in 2 years back at home.

…

The nature is very calming.

The endless beaches with almost no people.

The sun which I have missed.

I even read a little bit now, out in the sun. With sunscreen and sunglasses of course.

Somehow the energy feels different.

…

Nothing had really changed with me.

But yet I felt like almost everything was easier here.

That’s when I realized.

Maybe I didn’t have to change, maybe I had to change my environment.

Nothing inside me had changed.

I was still quiet.

I still liked reading.

I still enjoyed being alone.

So why did life suddenly feel easier?

I kept trying to fix the plant.

I never questioned the soil.

…

I spent years asking,

What’s wrong with me?

I never asked,

What is my environment bringing out in me?

It wasn’t just the place.

It was the people.

The pace.

The conversations.

The values.

My environment had been shaping me the whole time.

Sometimes the person you’re trying to become...

is waiting in a different environment.