Deliberate Identity

And it's not anxiety or fear. It's that silent certainty of not being in the right place wherever you are. That whatever you've done, it's not enough. That there exists a version of you that you haven't reached yet, and maybe never will.

As a kid I picked hazelnuts, chestnuts, grapes and olives. Not to buy myself something. To get away. I didn't know where but I knew my place wasn't there.

Because the only competition that matters is the one with yourself. Not with who you think others are. But with who you know you can become.

And I've taken hits. Thirteen years of hits disguised as beginnings. But they didn't stop me. They taught me one thing — the secret isn't knowing who you are. It's choosing who you want to become.

But I knew it was a lie. I had trained my brain to understand when it lies to itself. I knew that if I stayed in that comfort zone I would never leave it. That I would continue building someone else's dream while telling myself I was building my own.

Do you know what compound interest is? It works like this: every difficult choice you make today doesn't pay you back just once — it multiplies. Today's pain becomes tomorrow's competence, which becomes the day after's advantage, which becomes an unbridgeable distance between you and those who chose the easy path. Those who postpone pay interest. Those who act collect it.

And when you start listening to yourself, you discover things you don't like. You discover that most of your thoughts are fears disguised as reasoning. That your emotions are automatic responses, not choices. That your unhappiness doesn't depend on what happens to you, but on how you interpret it.

For years I thought I would be happy when. When I had enough money. When I had the right company. When I found the right person. When I reached the right place.

Second phase: it steals the time to build a truly your own life. Because every minute spent measuring yourself against someone else is a minute stolen from who you need to become.

Not because they're more motivated. Because they start to feel that future version as a real person they have a debt to.

I personally have tried to silence it in every way over the years.

Because it's one thing to make wrong choices at 15, another at 20, and a completely different story at 25.

Because on those, and only on those, you build the person you become.

I had become a hotel-room-man. Clean, functional, identical to himself in any city. But belonging to someone, to no one.

I've spent my whole life chasing a next version of myself. The second company. The next country. The new idea. The evening when everything will finally make sense.

I'm saying this because I'm not a fan of "I'm going on a trip to find myself." Actually, it's a completely useless cliché.

I've spent my whole life chasing a next version of myself. The second company. The next country. The new idea. The evening when everything will finally make sense.

I say this because I'm not a fan of "going on a trip to find myself." In fact, it's a completely useless cliché.

If your version of Williams is a well-tended garden, a well-written book, a family held together well, a neighborhood shop that becomes an institution — it's exactly the same thing. It's just that you had to point yourself there. It's harder. It's worth more.

It means: someone put their finger on me and said, you are this thing here, and I'll guide you there. It means: I don't have to figure it out alone, I don't have to waste twenty-five years searching for myself, I don't have to fight against the culture surrounding me because the culture around me is already pre-aligned with what I'll become. It means: I have a track.

I arrived from São Paulo a few days ago — and before that from the mountains of India. I wrote to you last week about a music inside that doesn't play (reread it, if you don't remember), and one thing I know about myself is: my music plays in movement. Movement is the way. Stopping means quitting.

He arrives before all the others. Always. At seven he's already on the roof — the roof of a building that doesn't exist yet, exposed rebar sticking out of concrete, wooden planks, no protection, as if he were immortal.

And I, at that precise moment, would unblock myself. "Ah, see? He's doing it, I'll do it too." And I'd cross. Right behind, glued to his back.

I waited for permission. Some scrap of permission from someone, about something I had already decided inside, by myself, and even first.

Except this time I did something different. I left the phone alone and opened the Kindle. I was reading a book — one of those motivational books, personal growth, self-help, call it whatever you want.

And here I have to be honest with you, otherwise I become one of those videos myself. It's not like I wake up every morning and act like a champion. There are nights when I don't open the Kindle at all: I scroll like everyone else, I feel like crap, I fall asleep late and angry. Discipline isn't never falling. It's coming back. It's opening the book again the next morning anyway.

Because if the reward doesn't exist, then there's no longer any point in doing things to obtain it. Only one thing remains to love — the effort itself. Not the finish line. The climbing, not the having arrived. That's the thing to embrace, the only one they can't switch off with false promises.

You're right. And I'll say it plainly, without sugarcoating it — I see this as a curse. Because when I look around, I see almost everyone living in a kind of tranquility, a bubble so large they can't feel how fragile it is. And I find myself thinking that I, on the other hand, haven't enjoyed a single day in years. Not once.