The second place syndrome is the permanent feeling of never being enough, regardless of results. It does not matter what you achieve: someone always has more, and that comparison ruins every conquest. Stefano analyzes it as one of the slowest poisons of the modern era: we live in a global showcase where second place feels like defeat, and first place always seems occupied by someone else. The cure is not winning — it is to stop looking at the scoreboard.
What Stefano says about the second place syndrome
From Letter 01 — Here we go again
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.
Not compared to someone else, but compared to what you feel you could be. This distance doesn't close, not with work, not with money, let alone with cities. It doesn't close with anything.
From Letter 02 — Choosing who to be
I wrote in my journal: "I always thought others were better than me. That they had something more. That they were more capable, more attractive, more performing."
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.
From Letter 03 — The price no one wants to pay
Fifty-four attempts to become better. This is the third. Best, Stefano.
From Letter 04 — Week 4 of 54 — Happiness is a habit
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.
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."
From Letter 05 — Week 5 of 54 — The real cancer
It happens when you stop asking yourself "what can I learn from what others do?" and start asking yourself "where am I compared to others?"
And that debt, apparently, is a better measure of comparison than any life we see on Instagram.
From Letter 06 — Week 6 of 54 — Monkey mind
Why am I getting these results right now and not others?
And where does it come from? Doctrines. Academic teachings devoid of life experiences. Books studied without living them. Family patterns we might not have chosen. Voices of others we mistook for our own.
From Letter 07 — Week 7 of 54 — The art of defining your boundaries
▎ "The limit. The boundary line, the keystone. Everyone has one, but often it's not enough. Often it doesn't mark existence, it marks resistance."
Generic like a hotel room: clean, functional, identical to all the others. You sleep there and tomorrow you don't remember being there.
From Letter 08 — Week 8 of 54 — Those who don't come down from the mountain
The question is: which of the two is better off now?
I can't convince myself that staying would have been better.
From Letter 09 — Week 8 of 54 — Those Who Don't Come Down from the Mountain
The question is: which of the two is better off now?
Those who don't come downThose who chaseStay where they areStay where they will beThe day is already enoughThe day is a stageKnow what they'll do tomorrowDon't even know where they'll beKnow ten people, wellKnow a thousand people, poorlyTheir life isn't a storyTheir life is already a narrativeHave no dreams to fulfillHave dreams to fulfillHave no dreams to fulfillHave dreams to fulfill
From Letter 10 — Week 9 of 54 — The music we keep inside
There's something that's never said enough about that story, and that the movie tells without fear.
It was: what about me? And others like me? And the children from last week's village?
From Letter 11 — Week 10 of 54 — The Man on the Roof
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.
For the first half hour he's alone, him and the cold. Then the others arrive, but meanwhile he's already started: the blows on the iron rise up to my window while the city, behind him, wakes up calmly.
From Letter 12 — Week 11 of 54 — The traffic light
Because every decision of ours hides behind it a series of behaviors and habits that prevent us from changing and being better.
That's the thing that drove me crazy. Not the traffic light. The fact that I have the brain to understand by myself what's right for me — I have it, it works, I know how to do the analysis — and then I outsource to the first stranger who passes the job of giving me the green light. As if my decision, alone, wasn't worth enough. As if I always needed someone else's signature at the bottom of the page to say "ok, you can go."
From Letter 13 — Week 12 of 54 — Head on the Pillow
And usually there's only one way this ends. You open Instagram and scroll for an hour, until you fall asleep in worse shape than before.
Fifty-four attempts to become better. This is the twelfth. Best, Stefano.
From Letter 14 — Week 13 of 54 — The Punishment
And after a while something strange happened. The children who were rewarded started drawing less. The ones who received nothing kept going like before, for the pleasure of it. The others didn't — the reward had switched something off. They had stopped drawing out of love, and were only drawing in relation to the prize.
Fifty-four attempts to become better. This is the thirteenth. Best, Stefano.
From Letter 15 — Week 14 of 54 — Sliding Doors
On the clock, sure. But stop for a second. In those ten minutes we drove down streets we never would have taken. We saw things we wouldn't have seen. We avoided a car, an intersection, maybe trouble. Maybe we avoided something worse. Even just my mind: ten minutes before I was one person, ten minutes after I was another, with different thoughts, different choices.
And so I get to the point. (And it's not the one that's going to make you feel better.)
From Letter 16 — Week 15 of 54 — The Suitcase
For all this time, I tried to change the suitcase. I bought bigger ones, nicer ones, the kind people turn to look at in airports. I changed the clothes inside, made them cost more. I changed cities, beds, all those identical white ceilings. I changed everything that could be changed out there, convinced that eventually, by changing enough stuff, I'd finally feel ready to unpack it — that suitcase.
Fifty-four attempts to become better. This is the fifteenth. Best, Stefano.
From Letter 17 — Week 16 of 54 — The Autopilot
I went for work, even though "work" is a strong word: I went to be with people, to meet others, to spend a few days together. Networking, the sharp ones call it.
See the trick? I place my power out there. Among others. In relationships, in the middle, when I light up the room. A power on my own I don't grant myself. Alone, still, in silence, with no one to win over, I don't feel strong: I feel small. I need others to tell me I'm worth something, otherwise I don't believe it myself.
From Letter 18 — Week 17 of 54 — The Brainwashing
So get one uncomfortable thing into your head: there's no such thing as "the clean brain, the real me, just how I am." There's no one who hasn't been programmed by something or someone. There are only two kinds of people. Those who let their brain be washed by others and by chance, forever. And those who at some point pick up the pen and begin, painstakingly, to rewrite it themselves.
Twenty-eight years of things written by others, to be dismantled piece by piece, knowing that for months you'll see nothing happen. It's the least gratifying work in the world. And it's the only one that matters.
From Letter 19 — Week 18 of 54 — You're Already Someone
And I know what steals it from me every time. Comparison. Measuring yourself against others — it eats you alive. I've talked to you about this before, and I don't want to do it again, because the lesson "don't compare yourself" is something everyone knows and no one applies, myself included.
Three times "I'm jealous." Me. The one who's now explaining to you that you're already someone, that you shouldn't compare yourself. Three times, in black and white, envy for those who have a path. I haven't recovered from anything. I'm writing this to you while I'm still doing it.
From Letter 20 — Week 19 of 54 — A Show Without an Audience Is Not a Show
Look at what we do when other people are around. We measure ourselves before speaking. We say the most acceptable version of what we actually think. We look around to figure out who's there, what they expect, whether we're too much or too little. We wait for the right moment — and the right moment is the one when we're sure it won't hurt us, which means never. We compare ourselves to that person over there who we think does it better, and we put it off until we're ready.
This isn't theory: the experiment with electrons fired one at a time was carried out by three Italians, in Bologna, in 1974. And in 2002 physicists from around the world voted it the most beautiful experiment in the history of physics. If you want to check it's all there, and it's half an hour better spent than scrolling reels.