Pablo Shrugged ¯\_(°_o)_/¯

If You Don’t Choose Your Life, Someone Else Will

I’m at Waterlooplein metro station, 9 p.m., the cold biting through my jacket after salsa class. Still tripping over my steps, but better than before. It’s my escape from a job that leaves me flat.

I swipe my card, the glass gate swings open with a hiss, and this guy in a hoodie sidles up close, too close, trying to slip through without paying.

I’ve been here before. I watched them sneak by every time. It quietly pissed me off, but I always let it slide. But not tonight. I don’t know why, but I stop and block his entrance. The gate snaps shut between us. He stumbles back, eyes flicking up, startled. I say “Dude,” low and firm, no shake in my voice.

I’m small, 164 cm, 59 kg. Never thrown a punch and I plan to keep it that way. But that night, I hold my ground.

He doesn’t speak, just stares, caught red-handed. Neither of us saw it coming, me least of all. My heart’s pounding. No fists, no yelling, just a rush. Adrenaline floods me. I stand straighter with my chin up.

Reckless? Sure. Dumb? Maybe. I turn and keep walking. I was levitating a foot above the ground, high on self-respect. It wasn’t about the €2.50. It was the first time in years I didn’t let something slide.

That night at the metro, I stood my ground. No plan, it just happened. I just knew it felt right.

Weeks later, I found The Fountainhead, and suddenly, I had the words for that feeling.

Scrolling through the comments on one of those “become a better man” YouTube videos, I found one from a guy who said this book had turned his life upside down when he was a teenager.

Written in 1943, it was a book no one I knew had ever talked about. Online reviews trashed it: selfish, cold, overly simplistic. Curiosity won, so I grabbed it anyway.

It’s about an architect, Roark, who lives unapologetically by his own rules. Not a soft story, not a short read, but it hit me hard. I was drifting then, stuck in a life I didn’t even see I hated.

This book laid out two paths, two lives. Roark and Keating.

Howard Roark isn’t real, but he’s more alive than anyone I’ve met. He doesn’t bend, doesn’t compromise, gives zero fucks about what others think. Kicked out of university for refusing to live in the past, he walks off unbroken, laughing. What happens to someone who refuses to kneel? I couldn't put the book down.

Then there’s Peter Keating. Top of his class. The achiever. Prestigious job, all the praise. The one who never made a wrong move because he only ever did what was expected of him. A master at playing the game, winning by saying the right things to the right people.

Roark was something to strive for. Keating was a mirror, and I hated what I saw. A call to rise, a warning to fall. I wasn’t ready to face the truth, but since when does truth wait for permission?

I’d let too much of Keating’s need-to-please creep inside me, and it got worse over time. Approval is like drinking saltwater. The more you drink, the thirstier you become. I just wanted a quiet life, no mess. But conflict is not something you can avoid. Either you have it with others, or you have it with yourself.

I wasn’t Keating or Roark, but without them, I had no compass. Catholics clutch their rosaries and whisper, “What would Jesus do?” I couldn’t ask, “What would Pablo do?” because I didn’t know who that was yet. I was supposed to just know, but I didn’t. So I borrowed Roark’s fire, to burn everything down and see what remained.

I started questioning what was truly mine and what was borrowed from others’ expectations.

I bleached my hair. Not as a tantrum, but as a dare: Could I be bolder? I saw a stranger in the mirror and I liked him. Hello, new me.

I was done hiding, tired of being a photocopy of what was agreeable. I started wearing what I wanted: stuff that popped, stuff that flashed. Finding my own style. Got my first tattoo, something truly me. Every step, Roark whispered, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

Family came next. At home, we’d never talked about the real stuff, just weather, Netflix, but never who I’d become or what I feared.

I love them, but I had to break the script. Some family dynamics settle and never get revised. I’ll always be my parents’ son, but I demanded a different relationship, one where we weren’t afraid of discomfort. Where honesty mattered more than keeping the peace.

There are some things families never talk about. It was time to open the box and deal with whatever was inside. I wanted to understand and be understood. Most importantly, I wanted to heal wounds from the past.

It took time. We shed tears. What we have isn’t perfect, it’s much better: It’s real.

At work, I was drowning. Meetings about meetings, everybody waiting to say nothing worth hearing. Big tech, fat checks, fragile egos. I chased it all, thinking it proved I was smart. It was a treadmill to nowhere. Sick of jogging in place, I saw it: the golden cage, door wide open all along.

I quit, heart banging like that metro night, no map, just out.

It wasn’t bad. It’s just… the bullshit, you know? The talk, the meetings. Less building, no fun. What’s the point of this whole circus? I couldn’t fake giving a damn anymore. Life kept ticking by while I sat there, waiting for green lights that never synced. Fuck it, I’d rather crash than crawl. So I walked out. Done waiting for permission to live.

I could’ve stayed. Kept my job, my apartment, my comfort. But standing still isn’t standing my ground. I sold everything, cashed my savings, hit the road. Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, three months now.

The old me had to die. I didn’t need death knocking to see I’ve got one life.

I’m trying to be a writer now. No degree, no bestsellers, just me and this laptop, and words that won’t quit. I skip meals, lose track of time, wrists hurt from typing, tea’s cold again. No deadlines, no magazines, no claps, just this force inside I can’t name or understand.

Roark’s example pushed me forward, but Keating’s shadow still whispers: Play it safe. Stay in line. Be nice.

I’m acting anyway, doing things even when I’m freaked out. I worry about what my old work buddies think of me doing this. Dumb, I know, especially since the people who matter to me are my biggest fans.

I don’t write to be great. I write to be awake. To stay alive. I’m sharing it more, hoping it’ll hit someone like The Fountainhead hit me.

This is where I figure myself out. It’s messy, it’s raw, it’s mine.

Not Roark, not Keating, just Pablo.