This is where the deepest change begins. Not in perfection, but in loyalty. You begin to choose yourself in the moments when you would have abandoned yourself before. Instead of turning your anger on yourself and calling it “discipline,” you ask, “What are you really trying to tell me?” Instead of pretending you’re not hurt, you honestly say, “That hurt me.” Instead of forcing yourself to “get over it,” you allow yourself to move through everything at the pace of truth, not at the speed of others’ comfort. You begin to talk to yourself the way you needed to be talked to long ago: patiently, lovingly, without rushing, without the intention of running away when things get complicated. The war in your mind doesn’t go away, but the fronts change. You no longer fight against yourself. You stand with yourself in the middle of the battle. Your life changes the day you stop running away from the battles in your own mind. You no longer stand on the other side of your own pain with folded arms and harsh words. Instead, you approach the most frightened parts of yourself and stand with them... It will cost you. It will tear away your false strength and demand true courage. It will bring tears that have waited years to fall. But beyond this sincere surrender rises something stronger: a life in which you are finally on your own side, in which you can inhabit your own body without fear, in which you no longer have to run away from yourself to survive. And in this firm and tearful decision, your life not only changes. It finally truly begins....

Stopping is hard. It’s like turning around to face a host of ghosts you pretended not to see. Every betrayal you overlooked, every heartbreak you downplayed, every harsh word you said to yourself and called “motivation,” every night you cried under the covers so you wouldn’t be “too much” for anyone—they all sit there, unchanged by the years you tried to outrun them. You return to forgotten versions of yourself: the child who learned to be quiet so as not to be a burden, the teenager who swallowed his feelings to fit in with the gang, the adult who kept saying, “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,” while his soul bled. And there are no shortcuts here. No pretense. You have to stand in the middle of your own timeline and let it hurt. There is a kind of mourning in this that steals your breath. Mourning for the time you wasted betraying yourself just to keep the peace. Mourning for the words you needed and didn’t hear, for the apologies that never came, for the way you learned to carry a guilt that wasn’t yours. You begin to see how many times you’ve left yourself behind to keep others comfortable, how many times you’ve sold your honesty for their approval, how many times you’ve stayed up at night negotiating with your shame. When you stop, you finally encounter the abandoned versions of yourself. You see the child with tears swallowed, the teenager with unspoken fears, the adult forcing a smile while falling apart inside. You don’t rush past them. You sit with them in the darkest chambers of memory and say the bravest words you can offer: "I'm so sorry I left you alone."

Your life truly begins when you decide to stop abandoning yourself. There is a terrible pain that comes from making life just an escape, an attempt to run away from your own thoughts whenever they get too loud. You become an expert at abandoning yourself. You leave when memories rise to the surface. You leave when fear begins to ask questions you don’t want to answer. On the outside, you may seem in control, successful, even admired. But on the inside, you are running through labyrinths. All this running feels like strength. You tell yourself that you are resilient, that you are “getting through it,” that you are “holding on,” that you are “on top.” You point to everything you do and say, “See? I am fine.” You keep yourself busy. You gather distractions like shields. You work too hard, you help too much, you explain too much, you give too much... whatever, just don't sit still long enough for the truth to catch up with you. All this running feels like strength. You tell yourself you're resilient, that you're "getting through it," that you're "holding on tight," that you're "on top." You point to everything you do and say, "See? I'm fine." You keep yourself busy. You gather distractions like shields. You work too hard, you help too much, you explain too much, you give too much... whatever, just don't sit still long enough for the truth to catch up with you. You cling to the idea that if you don't look directly at what hurts, it will heal on its own. But wounds don't go away just because they're ignored. They wait. They grow in the dark. They seep through your habits, the way you talk to yourself, the way you guard against softness as if it were a threat. You may not name the war in your mind, but your body knows it's there. It shows in the way your jaw clenches, in the knot in your stomach, in the rapid breathing when you're alone.

There will always be someone more beautiful. There will always be someone more intelligent. There will always be someone richer. There will always be someone better... But there will never be someone who is YOU. The world constantly invites us to compare ourselves to others, to look at lives that seem more polished, minds that seem brighter, or presences that seem more captivating. In this endless game of comparisons, it's so easy to believe that there will always be someone more beautiful, smarter, younger. It's a race to nowhere, a battle we are doomed to lose, because the finish line moves endlessly. But the truth is, they can never be YOU. Your life, with its scars, its joys, and its lessons, has sculpted a being like no other. The unique blend of your experiences, your way of looking at the world, your courage, and all the skills you have built over time belong only to you. The very things that make you different are what give you your true beauty.

Whatever he has or receives, man is capable of rebelling and resisting God, if he does not accept the truth that rebellion is the trap that keeps us in suffering.