Small achievements, big victories.

The little things in life are a must. They are the ones that lead us to maturation, that shape our personality traits and, ultimately, dictate us where we go. They are like a ladder that we must use daily – sometimes going up, and sometimes going down.

Nobody is ready to embrace their fate or become an adult without going through the rite of constant small achievements. Destiny is fulfilled only after learning.

The first step is, symbolically, the beginning of the conquest of space. It's the beginning of the walk that will later take us to expand geographies. First the world is just a square around the table which we use to prop our delicate legs, then the course slowly widens, at the hands of parents who lead us through the streets. And finally, that first step, culminates in the passing of life, made of tiny choices constantly woven – we go through here and not there, we go further, we stop, we cross this or that place...

The memories accumulate, and as we reach maturity we understand, finally, that to achieve small things it took great efforts, and great battles were fought.

Like the first time you popped a bubble gum, after many failed attempts and many days fighting hard to make something so useless, but that seemed so fascinating as we were not able to do it. And, unexpectedly, the bubble ball came round as the mouth, growing with the breath until it reached its maximum transparency and it popped, giving us a small achievement.

Or when you learnt to whistle. You realize that there is a technique: the whistle fits the lips, and it is the whistle that chooses us. Try it again and again until the day it comes out whole, ready, as if it had always lived within us. And the sound propagates itself, it takes us with it, and this is another small achievement.

That is life: the set of all the small achievements. They are the ones that make the difference, that dictate the course, that wake up rationality, that lead to maturity, that break boundaries and lead to overcoming. It's the first smile, the first word, the first step that make the transition from crib to a stuttering childhood and that lead us into the future.

Sometimes a small gesture transforms itself into an event of even larger proportions so that all future reveals itself in a kind of epiphany – it may be that moment when your eye meets another and you know simply, you simply know, that the future is all there.

The future is the place where it is believed that dreams, projects and desires inhabit. Everything that you cannot accomplish today, gets filed away in the future, gets thrown up ahead and we hope that one day the twists of life and our efforts will get us there. From the moment we understand what the future means we start to pursuit it, like cats trying to catch their own tails.

But the future is made of today's decisions, today’s moments and small achievements. The future is like us: it isn’t born ready; it doesn’t come out with a bang, suddenly, like the cry of a newborn. It is slow, it grows quietly, and it feeds on the successes and mistakes. You have to sweat and cry, laugh and fool around, skin your knees in childhood, make soap bubbles, have a first love, and make sand castles before you build a real house.

The future emerges of small achievements, and reveals itself in big victories.

The excesses and the superheroes

Excess is what remains, what is surplus, lawlessness, lack of moderation. Excess is what is detrimental, instead of being useful or beneficial.

Excess hurts, and it causes pain. It's an addiction, a compulsion, a disease. It is the result of some chemical and emotional disarray that shakes people inside and overflows into the body, as a glass full of water.

Excess is always an excess: food, alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs! These are problems with different profiles and consequences, but they are, above all, an excess: something that breaks the boundary of the skin and spills onto the body. It is when it reaches the body that the excess is no longer a secret and becomes visible and objectionable, especially for those who have never confronted their inner boundaries or their lack.    

There are those who counsel moderation – even with an inappropriate lightness – to those who suffer from some kind of excess. But dealing with the excess is a difficult and painful process. If it were easy there would be no excesses, but only a perfect world of balance!

Mark Twain said, “we do not rid ourselves of a habit by throwing it out the window: it is necessary to make it go down the ladder step by step.” This is how we free ourselves of what we do not want, what makes us sick, what hurts us: slowly, very slowly.

Everybody is well aware of the harmful effects of their compulsion, and often wakes up thinking that he has to stop or overcome the problem. And as soon as that first morning thought strikes, he throws himself immediately at the compulsion that he is trying to get rid of. It's as if the thought itself is enough for the whole body and energy to throw themselves at the satisfaction of that addiction. It becomes greater than everything. It is the center of everything and it is around it that the whole day is organized.

It is not the advice or the knowledge of the consequences of a compulsion that makes someone stop. Not even the most modern medicines are effective against an addition if there isn’t an inner decision. There is obviously a question of chemistry - it is a disorder, but if there is no will there is no way to overcome it!

Mastering a compulsion, an addiction, requires three basic things: humility to recognize the problem, willingness to quit it and the right time. There’s no point rushing to the hospital, to the sophisticated medications or to have a battalion of friends and professionals full of good intentions.

A compulsion is kept at bay from the inside out – starting from the inside, like any major decision in life. It needs time – the right time – to mature, until the will becomes dense and passes from the gaseous state that is the thought, to the solid state that is the action! And that’s the only way it’ll work. As long as there is no consciousness, no will, and no time there is no way to quit a compulsion – food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or any other.

Quitting an addiction is a slow process that measures how tough you are, because people may quit an addiction, but the addiction never quits them. It is a shadow that lives forever in their head and it comes back at a slight gesture of distraction, at the slightest oversight. An addiction is like an unruly child; it is bold, rebellious and boundless: it needs constant monitoring and care. You do not quit an addiction with anger, rage, hating it and denying it. You quit an addiction the same way you quit a longtime lover, when there’s still love, but the desire is gone: slowly and tenderly, respecting the past, but creating a new future.

Those who can quit a compulsion discover an unexpected strength that is capable of changing their fate. After the suffering caused by the abstinence and the reeducation of habits, they are reborn and feel a bit like the superheroes in cartoons: owners of a superpower that makes them masters of life, and truly free. They exceeded their limits because they have controlled what is most difficult to master: the demons that dwell in the soul, the ghosts that haunt the mind.