Mine is not a normal story, in fact its beginning was extraordinary, when I say this, don’t imagine beautiful things, the extraordinary thing was that death was very close. A fire caused by carelessness caused my body to have third and fourth degree burns, how many people do you know, who would have survived this?
What I am telling you is in no way to make you feel sorry, but rather to make you realize that beyond the things that happen to you, you are able to turn your life around, that’s what I did.
For many people, pain has been an obstacle, they continue to take refuge in whatever it is that they suffered or in what they experienced, instead of letting it go and realizing that the fire is no longer there, the abandonment has already happened or that whatever it was that caused them pain is gone; they keep reliving it every day of their lives, they settle into suffering, guilt, trauma, remorse, and they spend their whole lives feeling sorry for themselves.
And how can these people – who feel sorry for themselves – expect someone to respect them or treat them well, find a partner, feel fulfilled? For them, dignity comes last, when it should in fact come first, no one, absolutely no one, should feel they have the right to trample or walk all over you or disrespect you.
It is essential that nothing harms your dignity, on the contrary, you must nourish it with character and a lot of self-confidence, after all, it is thanks to this that you will be able to overcome and impose your will above all things.
For me life is a constant challenge, I cannot imagine a single day in which life does not present me with obstacles or problems that I have to solve, and if I were also carrying a sack full of guilt, regrets and traumas, it would be even more challenging. In that sense, I am not carrying anything.
But let me finish telling you this story, that fire happened when I was seven months old, I was only a baby, when the flame of a candle reached the fabric of my crib. My mother and my grandmother ran to save me and, for an instant it seemed that everything was lost, but it is precisely at that moment where we have to fight the most, when we think that life has nothing more for us.
In my book, Worse than you, better than all, I relate the details of that fire, which gave my life a completely different start that of other people: while other children played, I had to be locked up in a hospital, going through dozens of surgeries, recovering from the thousands of stitches and staples that I received; when other children were celebrating Christmas, I was in an operating room.
I have overcome all of this by far, it was not easy at all, but I was not going to allow anything to get in the way of my life and my dreams, that is why, ever since I was a boy, I got used to fighting to get everything that I wanted, and I think that you could do it too. Would you like to know how?
