Week 18 of 54 — You're Already Someone

A video crossed my path the other day. One of those you scroll past and then go back to.

There's a young guy sitting across from someone who makes a living as an entrepreneurship guru. And the guy, with his eyes lit up, says: "I know that one day I'll be someone."

And the other man stops him. Looks him in the eye and says: "Look at me. You are someone right now. Do you understand? I was someone long before people knew who I was. And I believed it. You are someone right now."

That's it. Twenty seconds. I watched it four times.

Not for the guru — that's usually stuff I skip. But for the guy. Because that guy is me. That "one day I'll be someone" is the sentence that's been circling my head for twenty years, except I've never said it out loud quite like that, with that look on my face.

One day. When I've done that thing. When I've gotten there. When I have more, know more, when I've become that other Stefano — the real one, the finished one.

And in the meantime, this one here — the one writing to you now, the one who's alive today, in this exact moment — doesn't count. He's just a draft. A construction site. Someone whose worth is on credit, against the promise of who he'll become.

And here I want to tell you something that almost scares me to admit.

I've spent my life wanting to improve myself. Grow, evolve, change, have more, become. The last few letters I've written you are about nothing else: changing who carries the suitcase, rewiring the brain, deciding to become someone else. I still believe in all of it, by the way. I'm not taking anything back.

But there's a price I hadn't told you about. And it's this: the desire to become someone has made me forget that I already am one.

Not "I will be." I am. Right now. Even if I haven't done the thing yet. Even if someone is ahead of me. Even just for the simple, enormous, stupid fact of existing.

And the absurd part is that I'd already understood this. Really. I can prove it with something I wrote one night in Bali, three years ago:

▎ Last week I had found enlightenment. I went to that part of my "self" I had never felt before. Everything seemed clear, I no longer compare myself to anyone, I know exactly where I'm going and what I truly want to live.

— July 18, 2023, Bali

Beautiful, right? "I no longer compare myself to anyone." I had touched it. I had arrived at that place where you feel good about being yourself, full stop, without having to measure yourself against anyone.

It lasted a week.

Because two lines later, on that same exact page, I had added: "as if I'd once again become the same old Stefano." Seven days and I was back here, running, counting, watching who was further ahead.

There it is. This is 54 — not one of those courses that promises to fix your life. I'm not writing to you from the top of the mountain with the answer in hand. I'm writing from someone who got a taste of that peace, and let it slip away. More than once.

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.

But this time I've seen it from a different angle, and that's why I'm writing it down for you.

Comparison isn't dangerous just because it makes you feel behind. It's dangerous because it makes you forget that you're here. That you already exist. The exact moment you turn to look at whoever is ahead of you, you disappear from yourself. You're no longer there, alive, in the present — there's only the gap to close. And that gap never ends, because there will always be someone further ahead.

Let me show you the Stefano who writes at night, when he doesn't have to convince anyone he's zen. A year ago, exactly:

▎ I'm jealous of those who find their path. I'm jealous of those who live by certainties. I'm jealous of those who are sure that choice will be the right one for them.

— June 3, 2024

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.

And yet. And yet there have been moments — rare, real — when it didn't happen. When I was simply there, and that was enough.

One evening in Amsterdam, two summers ago. I was having dinner alone on a hotel rooftop. I'd just closed something work-related, the kind of thing you're supposed to celebrate. And yet what I wrote down had nothing to do with work. It was this: "growing up means being at peace with yourself today. We are here, today, alive." Not tomorrow. Today.

And another time, again in Bali, I had written a sentence that is perhaps the truest thing I've ever put down, and which I'm passing on to you because it keeps slipping through my own fingers: the meaning of everything is "feeling alive where you are, not where you wish you were."

That guy in the video, with his shining eyes, was waiting for permission to be someone. And someone gave it to him in twenty seconds: you are someone right now.

The uncomfortable truth is that no one can give you that permission. Not a guru, not an achievement, not the day you finally arrive. Because that day never comes — you move the goalposts and start again. The only one who can give you that permission is you. And you have to give it to yourself now, exactly as you are, in the middle of all the unfinished things, with someone always ahead of you. Not later. Now.

I almost never manage it, if I'm being fully honest. I forget it every single day. But at least, every now and then, I remember it for a week. And maybe the work of a lifetime isn't learning to hold onto it forever. It's just noticing it a little more often.

I don't have a solution, you know that. I have a question, and this time it's simpler than usual: while you're running to become who you'll be, have you noticed who you already are right now? Or are you also, like me, waiting for someone's permission to exist?

Fifty-four attempts to become better. This is the 18th. Best, Stefano.

Look yourself in the face for a second, before you take off running again. You're already someone. Not tomorrow. Now. Try to believe it a little longer than I manage to.

Fifty-four attempts to become better.
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