This is a short, real story about a dream coming true.
You wouldn’t know about me, and I probably wouldn’t have written anything if, almost 9 years ago, I hadn’t met a young man who, even though he was my age, was able to articulate his thoughts more eloquently than almost any adult I'd met in my life up to that point.
As a lost teenager who was wasting his life away and slowly losing the qualities I believed I once had, this was my first time seeing someone my age who had faced the same doubts, confusion, and internal struggle but had managed to get a firm grip on his life.
He re-ignited my passion for reading and learning, which I had previously allowed the world of cheap and fast pleasures to take away from me. He inspired me to take my development as an individual seriously.
Intellectually and, most importantly, morally, he set the bar for me as high as anyone could ever set it. The bar, however, kept moving as he kept growing. But I never stopped trying to get as close as possible to that bar.
And that’s the beauty of friendship. That you are at the same time able to witness the growth of the person you love but are also challenged to grow yourself.
Over the years, we had countless conversations that would often last even five hours, talking about life, death, love, courage, religion, knowledge, justice, meaning, and all other great and timeless questions that linger in the minds of all curious people.
And it wasn’t rare that, after our conversation, we would, without false modesty, say that there were things we said that should’ve been written down or recorded because they were worth remembering and sharing.
I don’t know if it was my ego or the fact that I was never able to enjoy the simple joys of life as well as he, but years ago I made a decision that I could not allow for us to never actually share our thoughts outside of those conversations that made life worth living.
That’s why, ever since I started sharing my writing online, there's been a dream. If I was able to gain traction with my writing and build some kind of following, I wanted to use it to give a platform to the person who was, and still is, such a big part of my growth.
Most other people would jump at the opportunity or even ask me to share their writing. But it’s the opposite with someone who doesn’t care about social media, views, likes, and shares. I had to convince him. Which only strengthened my belief that it is precisely people like him that are needed in our online world today. The fact that his main motivation for writing wasn’t receiving exposure is precisely the reason he deserves exposure.
With my essay, 3 Reasons Why You Should Just Share Your Work With the World, I finally managed to convince him to come as a guest writer on Existential Espresso. A dream has come true. It feels like one of the most important stories in my life has come full circle.
So tomorrow, Existential Espresso will for the first time feature an essay that wasn’t written by me.
Another step in this dream is for me to convince him not to be just a guest writer but to become a regular on Existential Espresso. The realization of that will depend on how well I can, this time with your help, pressure him into writing more for all of us whenever his truly busy life schedule allows.
Thank you for making my dream come true by giving me a platform to share my own thoughts and to give back to those who deserve to have a platform more than I do.
Enjoy tomorrow’s essay.
If you get value from my work and you are interested in becoming more consistent, consider checking out my new book “The Art of Showing Up: A Clear and Practical Method for Mastering Consistency,” by clicking here.
Since I was writing this book in public, if you haven’t already you can read the free parts by clicking here.
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We are all eager to hear it! Loved the narrative and the path of the dream you are molding into reality =)