Why Did It Take Me So Long?
On pain, potential, and the uncomfortable work of beginning again.
In my last article, Pain Makes People Change, I wrote about how pain can force us to look at things we would otherwise prefer to ignore.
I have been thinking about that since I published it.
Because it is one thing to write about change. It is another to look honestly at your own life and admit that, despite everything you know, you haven’t managed to change the things that matter enough.
I have spent much of my life building things. Companies, ideas, possibilities. I know how to look at a problem and believe there must be a way forward.
But there is a difference between building a successful company and building a life you can be proud of.
I have not always understood that difference well enough.
There are things I have achieved that I am proud of. There are also commitments I haven’t fulfilled as I should have, expectations I haven’t met and people who have had to live with the distance between what I intended and what actually happened.
Good intentions don’t erase consequences.
And the question I keep asking myself is: why did it have to go this far before I started looking at myself differently?
When somebody sees your potential
There is something beautiful about meeting someone who sees potential in you that you haven’t managed to bring out yourself.
Someone who believes there is more in you, even against the odds.
I met someone who did that for me. She once told me she saw my potential. Those words have stayed with me.
I cannot speak for her or pretend to know everything she saw. But I know what it meant to me to feel that somebody believed there was something worth bringing out in me.
And there is a heartbreaking side to that, too.
Because when you realise somebody saw what you could become, you also have to face the possibility that you didn’t live up to that potential when it mattered. That the gap between who you could be and what you actually did affected not only yourself, but people who cared about you.
I have to take responsibility for my part in that.
She was not responsible for changing me. That responsibility was always mine.
I wish I could explain why it took me so long. Why sometimes we need to see the consequences of our own actions before we are prepared to confront the things we have been avoiding.
I don’t have a satisfying answer.
I only know that it is painful to recognise what needs to change and realise that recognition came later than it should have.
Talking about potential.. today my third patent is filed.. that side of me keeps surprising.. 
The uncomfortable beginning
I am not writing this as somebody who has figured everything out.
I am at the beginning of trying to do things differently. Looking more honestly at my health, my habits, my decisions and the way I live.
learning that wanting to change is not the same as changing. That writing about responsibility doesn’t make me responsible. And that another plan, another promise or another ambitious vision cannot substitute for doing the work.
There are things I regret. Things I may be able to repair and things I cannot undo.
I have to learn to live with that distinction without using it as an excuse to stop moving forward.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about the person I could become.
I want to become more dependable, more honest with myself and more willing to face uncomfortable truths, even when there is no immediate reward for doing so.
That is easier to write than to live. I know that now.
Building something beyond yourself
Perhaps this is also why No Safe Margin matters so much to me.
Through VioScore, I continue to work on technology and AI, exploring how data can help us understand complex problems. I want the company to succeed. Commercial success matters, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to build something valuable.
But I have increasingly asked myself what else I want to contribute.
Over the past month, I have met people who have done extraordinary things. People who have pushed themselves far beyond what most of us will ever experience.
Some have expressed a desire to help No Safe Margin, not to grow my company or gain a financial return, but because they believe the foundation’s purpose is worth supporting. Today I talked to a supporter of the initiative who said.. I had a relaxed weekend I did the three country marathon, and in two weeks I do the marathon of nY but lets meet Monday.. Just talking about potential.. not going to waste.. or being Crazy..
That has genuinely moved me.
It has reminded me that ambition can be about more than what we accumulate. That sometimes the desire to give something back becomes more important than the desire to acquire something more.
I find that humbling. Particularly because I know I still have a great deal to learn about responsibility myself.
No Safe Margin exists to help us understand, protect and act in the face of challenges affecting our natural world. That requires evidence, collaboration and the courage to confront uncomfortable truths.
I want those principles to mean something in the way I live, too.
We cannot address what we refuse to acknowledge. And we cannot expect different outcomes if we are unwilling to change what we do.
I am not there yet
I wish I could finish this article by explaining what everything has taught me, as if the difficult part were over and the answers were finally clear.
They aren’t.
I am still asking why it took so long. Why seeing potential was easier than living up to it. Why it sometimes takes pain to make us look at what has been in front of us all along.
Perhaps some answers will come with time. Perhaps some questions will never have satisfying answers.
What I know is that I don’t want to confuse understanding the problem with solving it.
I am grateful to the people who have reminded me that there is something worth building beyond ourselves. I am grateful to those who see potential in a purpose and are willing to contribute to it.
And I am learning that gratitude brings responsibility with it.
This is not a declaration that I have changed. It is an acknowledgement that I need to, and that the work cannot be done by anybody else on my behalf.
Perhaps that is where this chapter begins.
Not with the claim that pain has changed me, but with the responsibility to make sure that what I have learned changes the way I live.
The next blog is about the data needed.. Not for co2 no real data mental, physical, all. lets move..
Understand. Protect. Act.
And begin again.
— Romano Toscano
No Safe Margin Foundation