What i learned from doing what the others want and why you shouldn’t do it
By: Nuno Lopes
Tags: Self Love, Stress, Self Improvement, Burnout

Since I was young I always heard that I was a very smart kid and that everyone expected great things from me. I come from a family of lawyers and…of course…they wanted me to become one as well. My early teens were rough and I trailed away a little bit from school and from those expectations. By sixteen I was a popular guy in my school. It was a big transition and I was working for all the parties, being part of the students association. As per usual because of all that attention I didn’t really care about grades or being at home studying.

You can all see where this is going right ?

My family — traditionally all graduated and with the thought that was the only way to be successful in life — all started to criticize me and told me i was going to be nothing without studies but i want to win money only. That was my main focus but I listened to my family and went to college. Tried a degree in Sports, i spent 6 months there only and although i passed basically everything i wasn’t going to the 9 am classes…i needed to sleep. Of course after some time, after partying enough i wasn’t happy and i left. Came back to my city and spent the rest of the year doing nothing. Playing on the computer. Full nerd mode. Stay awake until 5 am and wake up at 5 pm.

After that terrible year, once again the pressure came to go and try another degree. I went to the university in my city and tried Web Development. Spent 1 year and half there and once again I left. I started working part-time at a rental store to earn some money at the same time I was in there and when I earned money I never looked back and started not going to classes.

New chapter of my life — Working !

I knew I didn’t have a degree so I needed to work 10x harder then many others to have the same opportunities and that never was a problem for me but that rental store was starting to be small for me and my ego. I refused to renew the contract and spent 3 months looking for something when something fell out of the sky. A friend of mine invited me to go on a project to the Netherlands to work in one of the best and largest companies there.

So there was my chance to prove to my family I could be something big without conventional studies and could be successful at life.

I was living the life. Lived in a hotel, always eated in restaurants. The company paid for everything. The dream right ? Well sort of…

I went there to be an IT Consultant. Working with applications that monitor all sorts of devices connected to the internet. The app was called Spectrum. I spent 3 months with my friend and then he was fired. So there I was…alone in the Netherlands in the middle of the wolves without knowing anything. I was f***ed I thought at least. I grinded hard for 5 month and became the master of Spectrum, won prizes with my team there and they started giving me projects just to me. I had their confidence and everything but I forgot something…My social life was zero.

That started to haunt me. I started to be so closed and started drinking by myself in the hotel room. After almost 1 year of being there I hit rock bottom. My head was always exploding. I couldn’t even sleep. I had a chat with the psychologist of the company and she told me I was probably having a burnout.

I was 21 years old back then and had already a burnout.

Now i’m back home and i’m near my family, my friends and have a steady job with good people and that has potential. I have time to implement my ideas and create my side hustles. That is what I have been focusing on but that’s a story for another time.

Hope y’all liked it because it was my first content on the internet itself. For me opening up like this was quite difficult but i think people need to do what they like and what they feel they should do and that’s true happiness.