Victimhood is glorified these days.
Society encourages it. It encourages people to identify with their trauma, to see themselves as fragile, damaged, helpless. Worse, it lets them use that identity as an excuse for their actions, or their inaction. It teaches them to let the past dictate their future and rewards them for staying stuck.
That might sound harsh, but it’s the reality.
We’ve built a culture that enables people to stay small. We don’t challenge them. We don’t inspire them to rise. We pat them on the back while they spiral.
And nowhere is this more dangerous than with men.
Mainstream media loves to trash “toxic masculinity,” but what they’re really doing is neutering strength. Conviction. Grit. Qualities that were once respected are now shamed. Especially in men. Society encourages men to suppress their power, silence their emotions, and accept a role as soft, passive victims. But we don’t need more softness. We need more sovereignty. We need strong MEN.
Let’s be clear: trauma is real. Terrible things happen to people. Scars are real. Pain is real. And I’m not here to downplay that or disrespect anyone who’s been through it.
But here’s what I will say, with love and with fire:
Your trauma is not a valid excuse.
Trauma Is Not the End of Your Story
Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychologist from the late 1800s and early 1900s, saw the flaw in modern therapy before it even existed. He acknowledged traumatic events, but he rejected the idea that trauma alone dictates a person’s destiny. He believed in personal agency. Even after great suffering, the individual has the power to shape their future.
He said it plainly:
We are not determined by our experiences. We are self-determined by the meaning we give them.
Yet today’s mental health model has drifted far from that truth. Most therapy today is rooted in digging through the past. Session after session of harping on old pain. The industry keeps people trapped in cycles, coming back week after week, stuck in stories they can’t change.
Why?
Because the incentive isn’t to free you. The incentive is to keep you coming back.
That’s the business model. And it works perfectly when you believe your past is the most important thing about you.
But it’s not. The present and the future are. The decisions you make now. The habits you build next. The actions you choose, those are what define you. Not the scars. Not the wounds.
You are not broken. You’ve just been conditioned to act like you are.
You Don’t Have Depression. You Do Depression.
This idea came to life for me through Aleks Svetski while reading his powerful book, The Bushido of Bitcoin. He writes that depression isn’t something you have. It’s something you do.
And once you realize that, everything changes.
You’re not sick with some random virus called “depression.”
You’re actively participating in a behavior. In a routine. In habits of thinking, moving, eating, isolating, avoiding, numbing.
You are practicing depression.
Carl Jung said it perfectly:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
That’s what most people are doing. Calling it fate. Diagnosing it. Owning it like a title.
But what you really need to do is bring awareness to your choices. Stop pretending it’s happening to you and admit it’s happening for you.
That’s when the power comes back.
The Personal Side: When the System Steals Time
Let me make this real for you.
When I was 20 years old, my stepfather took his life.
He was 57.
He had a family that loved him. He ran a successful beauty supply business in midtown Manhattan. His clients were the biggest Broadway shows in the world. Coincidentally, I sell cosmetics now too. Full circle, ehh?
We had the house, the lifestyle, the so-called “American dream.”
Then came 2008.
The Great Financial Crisis wiped out the business. Looking back, it wasn’t just a market crash. It was a direct consequence of fiat economics. The entire monetary system is a scam. Fractional reserve banking, central bank money printing, debt-based inflation, it's all designed to extract from the middle class and feed the machine.
My stepfather, like most, didn’t understand that. None of us did. I didn’t even hear the word “fiat” until 2020. And that’s why Bitcoin is a hill I’m willing to die on. I own close to zero dollars. For all intents and purposes, I am living on a Bitcoin standard. Because once you understand fiat is the root rot in this system, from food to pharma to finance, you start to see the whole game.
What happened to my family, and millions of others, was not “bad luck.”
It was systemic theft.
The stress destroyed him. He started breaking under the pressure. And instead of addressing the root, like fixing his diet, getting sun, lifting heavy, learning how money works, he turned to the “experts.”
They gave him antidepressants.
He didn’t eat well. He didn’t train. He trusted the system. Trusted the same doctors who are taught to treat symptoms, not solve causes.
No plan. No root-cause strategy. Just pills.
Over a couple of years, they dulled him. Not in a dramatic movie-scene way. Just gradually. He lost his edge. Lost his humor. Lost his drive.
Eventually, he gave up.
In his final note, he wrote:
“Born to be wild. Died depressed and alone.” (Born To Be Wild By Steppenwolf was his ALL time favorite song)
That line will live with me forever.
Because the truth is, he wasn’t alone. We were all there. We were going through the low with him. But the system made him believe he was isolated. That he was sick. That he couldn’t climb out.
He was in a dark place I can’t even imagine. To go to the extremes that he did, you have to be in a state so far removed from light, from clarity, from connection. Only those who’ve been there truly know what that’s like.
But that feeling, that state of mind, is not a virus. It’s not the flu. It’s not a diagnosis you’re doomed to live with.
It’s a pattern. And it can be broken.
But the system doesn’t teach that. It teaches suppression. Medication. Dependence.
That’s where it failed him. That’s where it’s failing millions.
The System Is Not Broken. It’s Working Exactly as Designed.
This isn’t rare.
In 2022, over 49,000 Americans took their own lives.
That’s the highest suicide rate ever recorded in the U.S.
One in six Americans is on antidepressants.
Depression diagnoses have exploded, especially among the youth.
Yet pharmaceutical companies continue to rake in billions.
The system is profitable not because it works, but because it doesn’t.
Ask yourself this:
If the drugs work, why is it getting worse?
The answer is clear.
The drugs don’t cure. They contain. They mute.
They turn crisis into chronic sedation.
Radical Responsibility Is the Only Way Out
This message is for the people who are ready to be free.
- Stop blaming your parents, your ex, your genes, your childhood.
- Stop asking “Why did this happen to me?” and start asking “Why is this happening for me?”
- Stop giving your authority to doctors, pills, systems, or diagnosis codes.
- Start behaving like someone who is not broken, because you’re not.
You choose to lead yourself.
That’s the core of Adler’s message. That’s the spirit of Svetski’s work.
And that’s the heart of Born To Be Free.
You are not your trauma.
You are what you do next.
You are not a victim.
You are the author of your response.
You are not broken.
You are building.
And if you’re reading this while on antidepressants, I don’t say this to shame you. I say this to wake you up.
Question the pills.
Question the system.
Question everything that keeps you numb.
Because you’re not meant to be numb.
You’re meant to be alive.
This is your time.
Use it.
Own it.
Protect it like hell.
Because once it’s gone, it’s gone.