"I feel like I need to prove myself to everyone"

This post came to be over a sentence I've read in the book I'm currently reading. I didn't catch it on the first time I've read it, but on the second run it stood out. This is probably the most personal post I've ever written and will ever write as it details things in my life I've never mentioned to anyone before about, but I feel it is teaching me an important lesson to share with you, Rafael, and whenever my time comes it will give you an insight into who your father is and what shaped him like nothing else I'll ever write.

I hadn't cried since I've been 17 years old, but apparently it wasn't broken because writing this did the trick. :)

The sentence in the "The Phoenix Project" book is from Steve, the CEO, and he's sharing his personal life with his Board of Directors. "But it's hard being a poor country hick, surrounded by people from privileged families. I feel like I need to prove myself to everyone".

Let's first establish how I personally deal with this. When I look at my life, I've been through hardships that would've probably broken most people I know, if I'm honest, but I always focus on perspecctive. So many people have had it so much worse than me, and beat odds much less favourable than mine, that I'm never going to be complaining about anything. This is my story, everyone has theirs and theirs are as relevant to them, as mine is to me.

Perspective is what has kept me since I was 17 years old, but not until then, from feeling sorry for myself and blame the whole world for what I couldn't do and who I couldn't be. Now, onwards.

I'm 34 years old at the time of writing this, and I'm still personally dealing with feeling like I need to prove myself to the whole world, and I now clearly see it has to do with the fact that I've grown and currently work and live with people that come from privilege so I always feel the need to constantly be proving myself. This isn't necessarily healthy and I need to change.

Now, the key point is what it means to me "coming from privilege", and this where it gets personal.

If you've never missed a meal, you come from privilege
If you didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent, you come from privilege
If you've never had your parent want to go buy half a chicken, for you, your other parent and himself to have dinner, you come from privilege
If you've never seen your parent harm himself in front of you, you come from privilege
If you never, as a young child, been put aside by the teacher on a school party day because she assessed that your parent's contribution was insufficient, you come from privilege
If you didn't grow up as a coward because you couldn't stand up for yourself, you come from privilege
If you never been put to fend for yourself as a teenager, unskilled and unprepared, you come from privilege
If you didn't grow up with some of your social groups to constantly make fun of you, including girls and how that felt inside, because how fat you are, you come from privilege
If as a child you didn't spend a whole night crying, because your friends parents were so good to them and you didn't have any of that in your life, you come from privilege
If you never felt ashamed, for after having your initial break and start teaching, to be serving your engineer students at a coffee shop and you were working there because they fed you and your parent and paid you an extra €5 a day, you come from privilege

This what I mean when I say I'm surrounded by people that come from privilege, and please whatever you do, do not feel sorry for me or pity because I don't. Again, everyone has their own story, this is just mine. All of this early on, made me learn lessons that most people will never learn in a lifetime, and I knew them by the time I was 20, so my story is a growth one (downhill from there would be tough, even for Fortune :)) so there's nothing to be sorry or to feel pity about.

The cautionare tale for both of us, because I'm sure that as your father and as a high achiever, there's the risk that you'll feel the need or even I have the expectation that you live up to my achievements and go even further that I'll ever be able to go, because I'd love you be as engaged in your craft and passionate about learning and development as I am, but know that your life is yours and you need to live by your own terms, understanding the skin in the game you have of making your own decisions and taking your own risks.

As your father, it is my job to warn you of perils ahead and you'd probably be wise to listen :) but at the end of the day, you are the sole owner of your life (after you're an adult and never before, until then it's called parenting and it's legal :D) and you're the one, because we all are, responsible for the outcomes we want or have in life.

Don't feel the need to prove yourself to others, not even to me, Rafael. Prove yourself to you.