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Stages of life. We've all been through them: "I don't want to go to school!, it's so boring", "mom!, please!, I'm grown up already", "I'll study engineering and become famous", "my first job, I'm so nervous", "would you marry me?". And so, like anyone else, I had to live through them too.

High school was a strange stage in my life. I never felt like it was a place where I fit in perfectly: I didn't like parties, the activities they organized bored me, I didn't stand out in any subject or sport and, as you've probably guessed by now, my circle of friends was pretty small. Still, if you asked me for a story that shaped my life in those years, I'd tell you this one.

2004: the year everything was going to change

It was 2004 and there wasn't much left before finishing school. And if you've ever been through that stage, you probably know it's a very hard one. Everyone expects something from you: "do you know what you're going to study yet?", "which university are you going to?", "with those grades you're not getting anywhere good". As if that weren't enough pressure, you also knew your life was about to turn 180°: you'd stop seeing your friends, you'd no longer go to that "delightful" place called school and, before long, you'd be an adult with more responsibilities than you think you can handle. The world, as you know it, is about to change completely.

Writing, my refuge

And well, I think that in the middle of all of that, I fell into depression. Okay, calling it depression is maybe overstating things a little, but I did feel very sad. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a very outgoing person. If you asked me what my ideal day looks like, I'd tell you it's a day at home watching a series or playing a game or two. Maybe coding one of those crazy ideas that are always running through my head. So the techniques most people use to unwind, like going out to meet up with someone, don't really work for me. I went instead for one that fit my personality better: writing.

And that's how I spent my last months of high school. I wrote in every free moment I could find. I wrote poems, short stories and the occasional essay on topics that caught my interest. I even kept a diary where I recounted my day-to-day "adventures". It worked as a kind of self-administered therapy.

There's something deeply pleasant about writing. And I know, you're probably thinking I'm crazy. I don't mean writing an essay for your Monday night class or a report for a boss whose only goal is to make your life impossible. I'm talking about writing for the simple pleasure of writing. Opening your heart and pouring your feelings into a poem, letting your imagination run and telling heroic adventures in worlds nobody has ever seen or, simply, writing down your deepest thoughts to relive them later.

Why I'm opening this space

That's the reason I want to open this space. And don't get me wrong. I'm not sad or anything like that. It's just that I've always liked writing and this is the perfect excuse to do it again. Now you're probably thinking: "good for you, but why would I read your blog?". Well, if you've made it this far it's because something here connected with you. Maybe you saw yourself in it, maybe you felt nostalgic remembering your own school years, or maybe, just maybe, you liked a little of what I've written. You might also just be bored with nothing better to do. Whatever the case, I promise to do my best so that when you finish reading each post, you feel your time was well spent.

What is this blog going to be about?

Which brings us to another question: what is this blog going to be about? I want to cover 3 main topics. One of the things that fascinates me is learning new things. I'm a firm believer in constant growth and lifelong learning. I spend almost every day watching some tutorial online or reading a book or two. The topics range from personal growth to marketing, finance, leadership, programming, and so on. The problem is that memory is fragile and you tend to forget. So I'll use this blog as a notebook for the things I'm learning.

The second topic I want to cover is my lived experiences. To date, I've started 4 companies, worked remotely for companies in the US, led teams, run businesses into the ground and lost a lot of money making bad decisions. There are things I've done well and many others where I slipped, hit the floor and watched the ground open up to sink me even further. The good part is that I learned and managed to come out the other side. That's the beautiful thing about life. It's always full of new opportunities. My hope is that you can learn from those experiences and do it much better than I did.

Finally, I want to cover personal opinion pieces: will remote work replace the office? what will learning look like 5 years from now? will artificial intelligence bring about a Terminator-style apocalypse? is it okay for pizza to have pineapple on it?

And with that I want to close this first post. I don't want to go on too long (more than I already have) because I don't want to bore you. All that's left is to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for making it this far. See you in the next post.