How can you ever be anything but yourself?

That's like asking whether the acorn becomes an oak tree, or was it always so?

The answer is both.

The seed holds the full possibility of the tree within itself, but it must grow into

it.

And like the acorn, you contain a potential within yourself which you must grow into.

Imagine a dot inside of a circle.

The circle represents full physical and psychological maturity, and the dot is you as a baby.

If everything goes right for you, you will fully become yourself: the dot will fill the

circle.

So what stops you from becoming yourself?

Problems.

You have problems that need to be solved like what to eat and drink, what to do for a living,

how to spend your money, and so on.

And as you solve your problems, you become more yourself.

But what stops people from solving their problems?

Most people never solve their problems because they're clueless.

They have no idea what their problem is.

They spend their lives trading one set of problems for another.

They trade poor people problems for rich people ones, loneliness problems for relationship

ones, common people problems for famous people ones, and so on.

People spend their lives exchanging one set of problems for another.

And often, the trade isn't even equal.

They trade one problem for two.

For example, a man yells at his partner in an argument.

Not only does it not solve the problem, but his uncontrolled anger creates another problem.

And this slow multiplication of problems grows out of control and leads to misery.

How do we deal with the problem of infinite problems?

All problems can be combined into one problem: suffering.

Suffering is the only real problem.

All other problems are fake problems or a specific expression of suffering.

And unless you deal with the problem of suffering directly,

you'll trap yourself in an endless cycle of trading one set of problems for another, and

so you'll never make any progress.

So let me formulate the problem of suffering more acutely.

Think about a collection of dots, and each dot represents a moment in your life.

One of these moments will contain the worst suffering you'll experience in your life.

Let's call this moment The Passion.

Passion is derived from the latin word passio, which means suffering & enduring.

Imagine the worst possible suffering you can—physical and psychological.

Who would you need to become in order to endure or overcome this suffering?

The answer to this question is the path to yourself.

So we started with this question: how do you become who you are?

And we arrived at an answer: solve your problems.

But how do you overcome the problem of problems?

We combined them all into a single problem: suffering.

And then we brought this problem to its deepest expression in The Passion: the moment in your

life of worst physical and psychological suffering.

Then we decided that to become who you are, you have to follow your passion, where passion

is the thing that helps you endure maximal suffering.

But following your passion is something you have to learn to do, and it's the same as

learning how to trust yourself.

And if you want to learn how to trust yourself, I recommend watching my video, "What I Wish

I Knew When I Was 20".

You can watch it by clicking the card in the top right of your screen or the link in the

description below.