Author: Andrea Grassi

The more the internet is in my life, the more I feel giving control to the web might create some unforeseeable issue in the future.

Much like the issue behind the stealing of the “n” username in twitter, I feel like we can lose it all in a glimpse.
All of our web identity, code, power.
Just one click and it’s destroyed.

I am not so naïve to think that I can secure myself from this threats, but still I need some backup.
That’s why lately I started using the Two Factor auth for the most important parts of my “web-life”. It’s a great way to secure my identity.
But there’s a lot that can be improved since I could lost the access with one deletion.

To fix this, I decided to triple backup the code in 3 secure system.
I feel a bit paranoid, but since I once got locked out, I hope it will save my from incurring into the same issue twice 🙂

There should really be a “No complain day”.
A day we’re not allowed to complain in any way( not even in our minds ).

What could be done in that day, how would your perception of the world shift?

No complaining doesn’t mean you shouldn’t state your opinion, it means to clear up ego and the information overload that ego adds to the conversation.

When you complain, you add useless information (that we, as human, think it’s really important information although it’s not), you add judgement, you add prejudice.

It’s hard to remove ego. I find myself thinking a lot about that. I am full of ego, full of useless information, and although I can’t call myself a “person who complains a lot”, I know that there’s lot to do, to learn, to improve.

No complain day might just be that: a start toward a better you, a better me, a better world.

In the past I was sure that reinforce the value that we feel we have was a good idea.
Writing that we are good, that I am so good doing this or that, bla bla bla, could improve your self-esteem.

That’s right, and it’s usually well-documentent. You can find plenty of books that will give you this advice, like tricking your mind that you’re worth it.
And they work.

Right now, though, I don’t feel like they are a solution to the problem, or at least the countereffects might just grey-out all the benefits.

The main issue I have discovered with this approach is that the reinforcement doesn’t happen to let you grow in some cases.
In some cases you continue to trick yourself and this habit is not intended.
The trick yourself moment should disappear while letting a more honest impression of yourself outgrow it.

The thing is: when you truly go beyond this you don’t care and this is not something you can learn from the trick-yourself attitude.

Tricking yourself into giving you a higher value will always revolve around yourself, your ego, your personality.
While this is great, and effective, in the short term it’s not the same in the long term.

How this will work out in the long term depends on your character, on your unexpected life events and so on.
So, if I were to give myself an advice on learning how to improve self-esteem, trust in myself, and learn more, it would be:

_I thought it was important to value myself, but now I don’t care, and it’s way better. Choose to be yourself honestly, live through your value and respect them no matter what._
_This will make the difference in your life_

That’s it.
I now realize it’s not important to reinforce yourself. It might be needed, but it’s much more worth it to live through values, through ideals and through honesty.
If we are guided by great ideals, our value is untouched as long as we are true to ourselves.

If you don’t know what the impostor syndrome is, well, check it out on wikipedia, but in any case the Impostor syndrome can be summarized by the fact that you can’t internalize accomplishment.

“I am not worthy of this” Is probably the phrase your mind uses.

As always, shit happens, and we feel impostor even though we fought for this accomplishment, even if you sacrificed for this accomplishment.

Lately I rediscovered this sensation, to have stole something that shouldn’t belong to me.
I then started writing this article, as I always do, trying to put on “paper” my thoughts.
One thing that was clear after the few lines is that I sacrificed, I fought.
I can recall all the items defining the base of this result that I know have, and all the effects, positive and negative.

This hasn’t removed the impostor syndrome from my mind, I know it doesn’t happen overnight, but it led me to understand that we have some tools up our sleeve that we can use, and recalling the things we sacrificed is one of them.

Not every success come easy.
Life is beautifully complex and so are its results.
Therefore you can find examples of the difficulties you found down the road to your success, you can list them.

That list will be your passport to the so called freedom from this syndrome.
It will be a small start, but the fact that you can prove to yourself that you’re innocent is one of the greatest gifts you could ever have from yourself.
Accept it.

I often think about the “things we do too fast”.
Like eating for example.

How many times did I ate something without tasting it? Too fast to understand its flavour, too fast to perceive its consistency?
Too many.
Two days ago the same thing happened to one of my friends and yesterday while I was preparing dinner, I was strangely present.
My mind didn’t have many thoughts and I was just enjoying the slow progression of actions of preparing dinner.

It was beautiful, but there wasn’t any specific beauty to it.
That clearness of thought, that concentration was the beauty itself.

So, today I realized that many things we experience in life might seem bad or not-worth-it just because our behavior towards them is uninterested.

We don’t pay attention, we move too fast to grasp the essence of every action we do.
It is strange, almost foolish, to think that in such small actions like cooking, reading, moving around the house or whatever you have in mind, is hidden some kind of happiness.
But, nonetheless, I must admit that it’s there, and until you experience this it’s impossible to explain.

This is why I think meditation and mindfulness are so important.