2023: Humans First

There is something beautiful, humbling, and slightly unsettling about reading your old writing.

Not because it is wrong.

Not because it is naïve.

But because sometimes you discover that the person you are today has been introducing themselves to you for years.

I wrote this in 2023:

“It’s a scary time to live in, we share the world with individuals so empty of themselves, they jump at the slightest excuse to make a status, a name, a career for themselves. All different ways of saying:

‘I don’t know what I need, but this sounds like an easy way to feel alive, fulfilled and honoured, by any means necessary.’”

Reading it back now, I can see that I was already trying to articulate something that would later become a recurring theme throughout my work.

Not the rejection of success.

Not the rejection of careers.

Not the rejection of ambition.

The rejection of substitution.

The rejection of using achievement as a replacement for self.

Because there is a difference.

A career is not a problem.

Status is not a problem.

Recognition is not a problem.

The problem begins when they become answers to questions they were never designed to solve.

Questions such as:

Who am I?

What do I actually want?

What kind of life would make me feel fulfilled?

What matters to me when nobody is watching?

What would I choose if there were no audience?

What would I become if there were no pressure?

Many people spend years chasing answers in places that can only provide temporary distractions.

The promotion arrives.

The applause arrives.

The followers arrive.

The title arrives.

The status arrives.

Yet the question remains.

Because the question was never external.

It was internal.

And no amount of external accumulation can permanently answer an internal absence.

That is why I wrote:

“We all suffer from day one the pressure, to be something we know for a fact we’re not nor want to be.”

I still believe that.

From childhood we inherit scripts before we inherit ourselves.

Some are handed to girls.

Some are handed to boys.

Some are handed through family.

Some through culture.

Some through religion.

Some through education.

Some through media.

Some through expectation.

The details change.

The mechanism stays remarkably similar.

Become this.

Want this.

Dream this.

Value this.

Fear that.

Avoid that.

Follow this path.

Measure yourself this way.

Earn approval this way.

Receive love this way.

Receive respect this way.

Receive belonging this way.

And for many people, life becomes less about discovering themselves and more about maintaining a character they were introduced to before they had the chance to introduce themselves.

Looking back, I don’t think this piece was about rebellion.

I think it was about permission.

Permission to exist before performance.

Permission to be human before becoming useful.

Permission to discover your own reasons for waking up in the morning.

Because the final part is the line that stayed with me the most:

“Some of us just want to live, no expectations, no pressures, just live for the sake of us.”

At first glance it sounds simple.

Almost obvious.

Yet it may be one of the hardest things for a human being to do.

To live for the sake of life itself.

Not for validation.

Not for applause.

Not for comparison.

Not for status.

Not for fear.

Not because somebody told you to.

Not because somebody expects it.

Not because you are trying to prove something.

But because you genuinely want to participate in your own existence.

And then came the line that feels just as relevant now as it did then:

“Find reasons for YOU to do life, find reasons for yourself to keep going with contentment on your face, and when you can’t find one, create one for yourself.”

There is a quiet responsibility hidden inside that sentence.

Not the responsibility to become everything.

Not the responsibility to save everyone.

Not the responsibility to meet every expectation.

The responsibility to participate in your own meaning.

To build it.

To create it.

To cultivate it.

To stop waiting for someone else to hand you a reason to exist.

Because borrowed reasons rarely fit for long.

Eventually they begin to itch.

Eventually they become heavy.

Eventually they reveal themselves as someone else’s dream sitting inside your body.

And that is where the final warning comes in:

“Taking on someone else’s reasons to live will endlessly leave you with a sense of defeat, emptiness and a constant yearning for the life you could’ve had.”

Three years later, I would phrase it differently.

But I would not change the message.

A life can be full and still feel empty when it belongs to someone else’s script.

A life can be difficult and still feel meaningful when it belongs to your own.

Looking back at this old note, I smile.

Because before SHS.

Before 4HONETH.

Before the Universal Bar.

Before the scorecards.

Before the governance frameworks.

Before the endless essays.

The seed was already there.

Humans First.

Not titles first.

Not status first.

Not image first.

Not performance first.

Humans first.

The rest was always going to grow from there.