On Monday night I decided to attend to a book presentation where many great screenwriters were going to partecipate. I expected to go there, listen to some brilliant words and then get home for dinner. What happened, instead, was a great chance for me to meet both new contacts and to confront with other two characteristic elements of mine: envy and regret.

These two are feelings connected to insecurity and low self-esteem. You are more prone to feel them if you are in a moment of your life where you feel you don’t have accomplished so much. You tend to confront with others and with your past, you are envious and wish you had done things differently.

I felt envious because I met people who managed to accomplish what I am still struggling to obtain. And I felt regret, because I thought (like it always happens when I feel envious) that if I had done things differently, that if I had chosen another path some years ago, maybe today I would be where these people that I admire are.

Luckily for me, I am not a person who indulges in these kind of emotions anymore. Being aware of who I am, of what kind of path led me – both psychologically and physically – where I am now, helped me overcome envy and regret and focus on what I can do to make things be what I want them to be. Now and given what are my true resources, not what I wish them to be.

Yes, I haven’t gone to a full time screenwriting school, and it was because it took me all my 26 years to fully understand and accept what I wanted to be. And there is nothing wrong with that. Knowing exactly what you want to do with your life at 19 years old is something society want you to do every time, but people are different, we get things differently. Yes, I am not a screenwriter nor a story editor nor a storyteller yet, but there is no one out there who could say that I don’t try my best to become one every single day of my life.

The best way to overcome envy and regret is to focus on what you want to do and to act. Don’t care about what others did, think about what you could do, now! 

So, I took the courage and spoke to a couple of screenwriters there. They have been both kind and helpful and, even if they reminded me of how hard this choice of life is, I felt encouraged. One of them actually offered to read and value some of my works, I couldn’t be more happy.

Besides, this encounter was also an occasion for me to meet again with some of my former colleagues from LUISS Business School and to start talking about some collaborations we could make.

So, in the end, being envious and regretful was totally pointless, don’t you think?

Ah, there is a final annotation to this story. Today, in a store, I met a former university colleague of mine, whose work I had always admired. We chatted a bit, since we hadn’t seen each other for years. As he spoke, he kept telling my sweetheart how much he used to admire me because of my determination.

You see? No matter how low you might value yourself, somewhere there is at least one person who can see things in you that you’re not even able to consider.