Read two chapters of a book that would’ve saved me a decade of quiet desperation – turns out we’re all performing conformity so well we forgot we’re performing it
The story
I just finished the first two chapters of Attila B. Horvath’s “The Journey” and I’m kind of annoyed at how much this would’ve helped me ten years ago.
The basic premise: your education trained you to fill someone else’s needs, not discover your own path. Which – yeah. Obviously. But Horvath doesn’t just complain about it. He names the specific trap we fell into.
We learned to perform conformity so well that we forgot we were performing. Good grades, corporate job, climbing some ladder we didn’t even choose. And now we’re living what Thoreau called “quiet desperation” – chasing material success while ignoring the stuff that actually matters. Love. Wisdom. Real connection.
Here’s what landed for me: you have to find the individual inside you. Nobody else can do this work.
Not your parents. Not your boss. Not some guru selling you their blueprint.
Horvath introduces this concept called individuation – basically, developing a self that’s actually yours instead of a Frankenstein’s monster cobbled together from other people’s expectations. And he’s brutally honest about what it requires.
You have to unlearn before you can relearn. Question the advice. Filter everything through your own uniqueness. Take the hard path now because the easy path just creates harder problems later.
The part about fear management got me. He distinguishes between valid fears [the ones that keep you alive] and destructive fears [the ones that keep you small]. Then he says: take immediate action anyway.
No “fake it till you make it” nonsense. Real confidence comes from comprehension – from actuall
For more about Chapters 1-2 of Attila B. Horvath’s book, “The Journey – I wish I knew this before I was 21”, visit https://attilahorvath.net/the-journey.
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