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54

Topic

Nostalgia

From the letters of Stefano De Cubellis

Nostalgia is a luxury you cannot afford. 54 explains why looking back is the most elegant way to never move forward.

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.

Trading. Forex. A blog. Videos. Social media. Travel. Every time I saw the wave before others and every time I rode it I got off before it reached shore.

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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.

And that's where I understood the first mistake. I wasn't competing with them. I was competing with my idea of them. So I was already defeated before I started.

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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.

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.

But it wasn't the growth that changed me. It was the awareness of something I had never seen before.

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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.

Same as yesterday ████████████████████░░░ ≈ 90%

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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.

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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.

Once you've started asking why, life starts answering you.

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Frequently Asked

Why is nostalgia dangerous?

Because it romanticizes what you left. If it had been truly perfect, you would never have left.

How to stop living in the past?

Accept that the past was necessary to bring you here. Then look ahead. Nostalgia is useful only as fuel, never as a destination.

Does nostalgia have any value?

Yes, it reminds you what matters. But it must remain a reminder, not a prison.

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