Almost four years ago I lost something important to me. I lost the pleasure to write. Struggling with depression, not wanting to admit this struggle, not willing to say it out loud that something had to change, I did my best to be self-destructive while hoping someone would save me from myself.

Truth be told, I’m not good at lying to myself enough to pretend that okay is good enough. That average is fine for me. That routine is something I enjoy.

I spent most of my childhood dreaming of the moment I’d grow up and assume the role and put a dent in the universe, and here I was, twenty something, lost, lazy, confused, and somehow feeling sorry for myself day in and day out.

I had lost myself, had lost the drive that got me this wonderful blog and a fantastic audience. Lost my hunger, my ambition, my desire to be the best possible version of myself.

I thought this was it. This was what I was going to be, this was all that I could be. Somehow, less than average. Some sort of… dreamer without the energy to do anything other than dream.

Everything felt too hard: working out, doing the work, aspiring for more, learning new things.

Twenty something years old and I felt as if I was too old to learn new stuff.

I was lazy. That was what I was. I wanted for things to fall on my lap or else pretended that I didn’t want them at all.

I dreamed of a future where I could be all that I had dreamt of being, but wouldn’t move a finger to make those dreams a reality.

If you’re like this, if there’s this stupid voice telling you that you can’t do something, please don’t listen to it.

If there’s a voice telling you that it’s okay to want things and accept you’ll never have them, do silence this voice.

You are not a noun, you are a verb.

You can grow and expand and adapt and overcome and learn and evolve and become anything at all.

But you must believe you can.

You know what I find ironic?

Most people don’t think they’re strong enough to change their reality, never grasping the fact that they themselves have created the reality they hate in the first place. It’s not the environment, it’s how you react to it.

Never accept temporary conditions as being permanent. Being broke is a temporary condition, being poor is a frame of mind, a depressed condition of the spirit, and you must never, ever be poor. The same goes for almost anything in the world.

Spend too much time inside a comfort zone and it becomes your prison. I know, because it became mine. But it gets even worse. The prison shrinks. It no longer seems to fit you. Anxieties develop and take control of your life, and before you know it, they become the only thing that define you. Anxieties, addictions, bad habits, laziness and procrastination, boredom, routine. The rat race. The rushing into the void with no clear goal in mind.

There are so many things to do, to discover, to create, to experiment with…

We must always evolve. We must strive to thrive, not merely survive.

I like this notion that we are not human beings, but human becomings. We have always aspired to become something more than what we were born to be. We must never, ever lose sight of that, for stagnation soon becomes this sort of… as if you died and are forced to keep on living. It’s not life, it’s not death. Neither hot, neither cold…