Growth
Today, I spent five hours talking to Awab.
It wasn’t planned. no intention, no emotional preparation. he texted me casually saying: “VC in 2–3 hours?” the kind of message you expect to lead to small updates and shallow catching up as we usually do. Instead,it became one of the most profound conversations I’ve ever had.
There was a time in my life when I allowed myself to be uncertain. uncertainty was my mindset. it did not affect the technical side of my questions, nor did it damage my daily decision making on the surface. but internally, I sometimes drowned in it. the paradox of choices embedded itself into my behavior, and perfectionism became a side effect of refusing to pick what felt suboptimal. I lived inside my head more than I realized. this state was invisible to the external world. it was entirely internal. I was doubting my own internals.
When I turned thirteen, something shifted in me. it was not dramatic on the outside, but internally everything felt rearranged. I was lost in a way I could not articulate. I could not understand my emotions, nor my behavior, nor the sudden cynicism that began to color the way I saw the world. I became negative, sharp, and difficult, and I started affecting the people around me without even noticing.
I basically ruined all the friendships I had since I was a kid, and it is me who is the problem, not the people, although I kept myself busy to the point where I don’t feel it most of the time, alongside guilt and fear of making new friendships.
Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you will understand how foolish it is to think you can change someone else.
— Matthew Hussey
This question is by far the hardest for me to answer. I’ve tried for years, and every attempt was prone to failure. A big part of the struggle wasn’t just about identity itself, but about how strange my relationships were, unstable, confusing, always shifting. It’s hard to know who you are when the people around you don’t stay long enough , for you to see your reflection in them.