Nostalgia is the way the mind rewrites the past to make it better than it was. Stefano calls it a trap because it operates subtly: it does not say "go back," it says "it was better before" — and this conviction prevents you from investing in the present. If it had been truly perfect, you would never have left. The past you long for is not the real past; it is a version edited by your brain.
What Stefano says about the nostalgia trap
From Letter 01 — Here we go again
It's not meant for you, really it's not meant for anyone. I've been writing this kind of stuff for years, in places where no one knows me, at tables where no one sits with me, in cities I change before I can call them home.
I've felt this distance for as long as I can remember.
From Letter 02 — Choosing who to be
If you're not guided by your vision of the future, you stay clinging to the emotions of the past. And your personality, instead of pushing you forward, drags you back. To where you've already been. To where you don't want to return but where it feels safe, at home, in a familiar place.
Last week I told you about beginnings. About waves seen, caught, and let go before they ever reached shore. About the problem that's never outside.
From Letter 03 — The price no one wants to pay
And every time you choose that path, you'll wake up six months later in the same place as before. With the same hunger. With the same distance from what you want to become.
But it wasn't the growth that changed me. It was the awareness of something I had never seen before.
From Letter 04 — Week 4 of 54 — Happiness is a habit
And every time I got there, happiness lasted three days. Then the emptiness returned. Then the hunger returned. Then that feeling in your chest returned, telling you "it's not enough, it's still not enough."
The day after the exit with NoLimits-Ad I worked all day. Because everything before that was just warm-up. But even after, the emptiness was there. Different, but there.
From Letter 05 — Week 5 of 54 — The real cancer
One night, in a hotel in a city whose name I don't remember, I wrote a sentence in my notebook, in a single line.
Every morning, before taking my phone, I sit and ask myself two questions.
From Letter 06 — Week 6 of 54 — Monkey mind
I opened my phone before I even put my feet on the ground.
I call it, for as long as I can remember, restlessness.