More than a decade ago, I became obsessed with one single thing. While obsession is often demonized, I think it leads to the most transformative experiences in life. Let me tell you why.
Everything started when I was very young. Around 5 years old, I watched Star Wars for the first time. In fact, when I watched the first episode (episode IV), I instantly became a fan to the point I asked my parents to watch a part of every episode, every single day, every week for years. And this, again, and again, and again. My favorite game was playing with Lego Star Wars and drawing spaceships; I wanted to become a Jedi (how original).
However, I quickly realized that there were no such things as Hyperdrives, laser sabers, Millennium Falcons, or mammoth Star Destroyers. The world was not that fun. Bearish…
I bifurcated to more realistic things such as rockets and planes. Saturn V, WWII planes, or Skunk Works did not have any secrets for me; I wanted to become an astronaut or a fighter pilot.
A stack of books on planes nearly as tall as myself (we’ll get back to that). Notice how I put them all upside-down.
But unlike others, it did not fade away, it persisted. I still wanted to become a pilot at 10 yo, and still wanted to become one at 15 yo. Like I said: I was obsessed.
So I took pilot lessons, did flight hours, learned how to navigate, prepare for a flight, and understand the physics of planes and weather, etc. By 16, I had my pilot license in my pocket, and I could fly alone within a 30km radius (btw, flying alone is like having a 99.9%-purity shot of freedom).
But to become a fighter pilot, not only should you have a pilot license, you actually need to be very, very good at sports. I had always been doing sport but it was quite anecdotic, like once a week, no more. If I wanted to become a fighter pilot, I needed to train harder. My best friend at the time pushed me to join him doing athletics (I thank him a lot). So I did, and it was hard, like really hard. I remember throwing up multiple times at the sprint training (sorry for the details).
I’ve trained like that for years, in advance, to prepare for the exam to become a fighter pilot. This was the only goal I had.
Something you should know, though: I’ve always been the shortest guy in the room. At 15, I was 1m52 (aka ball-punching height). But here’s the thing: a fighter pilot must be 1m60 at least. And if she is, she’d better be Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (spoiler: I’m not).
So, my parents and I went to specialists, as I could not see a future where I couldn’t be a pilot; they all said nothing could be done. Except one. He told us that I could take some growth hormones, but that the likelihood it would work was very low as I was already late in my “growth” trajectory (which was flat, in fact).
We tried because I did not want to abandon it. It worked up to a certain point.
I stabilized at 1m59,5. Yes, 5mm below the threshold. I felt injustice. My childhood dream was gone forever, while I had done everything possible on Earth to make it happen. This time, I needed to face reality. It was hard I see it (and still do) as the biggest failure in my life (yet).
Looking back, there are two ways to interpret this situation. One is that I’ve wasted so much time being obsessed with something that’d never come to fruition that I’d have been better off focusing on something more realistic.
Another view—and this is the one I’d recommend—is that being obsessed brings much more than one can think of. It’s the best way to accumulate a gigantic amount of knowledge on one specific narrow topic.
Actually, obsession is curiosity merged with determination. One cannot compete with those who are obsessed, and this is well framed in this Paul Graham’s essay.
Hence, obsession is like an orchard one should cultivate, preserve, and take care of. We may not know which fruits will come out and when. Perhaps it will be after years or decades of dedicated attention only, but you’ll be happy once you crop the first fruit.
For instance, one fruit I’ve cropped from this obsession is that by doing a lot of sports, I was not only the small and funny guy in my classroom but also the athletic, in-shape, small, funny guy. What I earned is self-confidence in my life and happiness, which I have kept until now.
I’ve cropped many other fruits, and I’m still cropping some as obsessions shifted. At the moment, I’m obsessed with DeFi.
So don’t let obsessions die altogether. If one does however, just pick a new one. It’s yet another fruit in your orchard, a few years from now.
