Hello, my name is Manuel and I’m from Italy, where I work as a doctor.
Although I have always been praised for being a good, intelligent child with a bright future ahead of
me, I’ve always wanted to experience new emotions and live many different experiences. I never
wanted to be restricted by social norms or by the expectations of my family and friends.
I’ve also always wanted to be the main protagonist of my own story—maybe because I’ve often felt
overshadowed by other people in my life. But in order to achieve this, I wanted to be the most
intelligent, popular, funny, and handsome guy.
While I believe that, in some ways, this mindset helped me grow as a person, I never truly found
happiness because I set myself impossible goals. I tried so hard that, at times, I could no longer
recognize who I was.
The impossibility of reaching what I wanted caused me immense sadness, and I came very close
to falling into depression.
I wasn’t happy with my friendships—I was always trying to hang out with the popular crowd, driven
by a twisted idea that, by being close to them, I could be seen as popular too, even though most of
the time I didn’t share any real interests or connections with them.
I wasn’t happy with my job either—I kept comparing myself to the most intelligent and brilliant
colleagues, just as I used to be jealous of my classmates at university.
I wasn’t happy with my body—I felt the need to control my diet strictly and spend a lot of time at the
gym, just to have a good physique and be appreciated by others.
After a long time, I came to the realization that this way of living was never going to make me
happy.
I started going out with friends based on the good times we had together, choosing only those who
were kind and who genuinely cared about me and my feelings.
I stopped comparing myself to others: I began to appreciate my body as it is, to value my skills at
work, and to recognize my social abilities with other people.
And I can confidently say that, since then, my life has been happier than ever before.
I still do crazy stuff sometimes, but now I do it for myself—not to please others or because I feel
inferior.