Your Past Is Real — But It Doesn’t Own You

Some of you might remember the story I shared before about the man and the fortune teller. The punchline was that after 40, you don’t stop suffering—you just get used to it.

That feeling of getting used to misery is the exact pattern I first recognized in the story of David Goggins.

He didn’t just have a tough childhood; he survived a war zone. He grew up in a violent home, was bullied, discriminated against, and functionally illiterate. For years, he was a victim of his circumstances, on a fast track to getting used to a life of misery.

But people like him don’t change because of a gentle nudge. They change when the pain of staying the same becomes unbearable. For Goggins, that breaking point came in his 20s. Overweight and working a dead-end job, he saw a vision of who he could be—a Navy SEAL—and it clashed violently with the man he saw in the mirror. It was a moment of pure self-disgust, a confrontation he could no longer avoid. It was there he made a decision born not of hope, but of desperation: this ends with me.

His story forced me to confront my own. I was trapped in a cycle of stress so pervasive it had become my normal. When work overwhelmed me, I’d meditate or read a book. When a fleeting moment of happiness came, I’d chase it. But the stress always returned, like the tide. After years of this, I had to pause and ask: Is this what life is supposed to feel like?

Deep down, I knew it wasn't. Like Goggins, I went on a desperate search for answers. I read countless books and attended workshops, hearing teachers say, “You are not your mind.” The words made intellectual sense, but they were abstract, hollow. They didn’t land.

My breaking point wasn't one moment, but the culmination of a decade-long search that finally clicked after reading the work of a new teacher. Suddenly, the old wisdom became clear: the source of my stress wasn't my job or my circumstances. It was my own mind. I had been boarding every single thought-train that passed through my head—every worry, every fear, every doubt—and letting them drag me down the tracks. My inflection point was the realization that I didn't have to. I could stay on the platform.

That’s the freedom I want you to hear today, especially if you’re navigating your own exhaustion, trauma, or mental exhaustion.

You are not your past.

You are not your pain.

You are not your mind.

You are not broken — you’re becoming.

Your past is real. The wounds are real. But they only own you if you let them. Change doesn’t happen when you’re comfortable. It happens when you’re cornered—by your own suffering and your refusal to live another day getting used to it.

Don't just be inspired by a story; be ignited by it. Use these journeys as a catalyst. Don't just consume them; study them as a manual for your own uprising.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment. It will never come. If you want a different future, you must start building it. Day by day. Step by step. The road won't be easy — but for the first time, it will be yours.

Now, I want you to leave a thought in the comments, but let’s skip the small talk.

• What is the one story about your past—or your mind—that you’ve allowed to define you?

• What would it look like, right now, to decide that story ends with you?

Embrace the struggle. Stay awake to your own excuses. And keep moving forward.

Own the next step,

Sikieng