When you were five years old, people would ask what you wanted to be when you grew up.

That is really the most beautiful moment in life: the moment when you begin to remember without forgetting anymore, when your thoughts start generating reflections and ideas. It is when you realize you are real — that you are human.

Back then, we started elementary school at that age. Mothers always saw us one step ahead ready before the world was. The six‑year rule was just a social format that few followed.

My classmates often talked about the future: firefighter, police officer, or whatever job their father had. It was the normality of children, a reflection of the time we lived in and the world around us.

Then one day, they asked us to author an essay: describing your family. The next day, they urgently called my parents and asked if they needed help.

I had described my family without telling the truth. It was not a lie — it was a distorted vision meant to protect them, to keep others from knowing who we really were. I wrote that my father was a woodcutter and that my mother begged in front of the church only in the morning, because in the afternoon she had to help me with my homework. Hahaha.

And when it was my turn in class, when they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, I answered: independent. No one really understood.

The teacher looked at me intently and asked: Are you sure? I replied calmly, with that same smile that has stayed with me for 61 years: “Isn’t an independent person someone who does what they want and don’t have to answer to anyone?” She looked at me even more intently and said: “Yes.” Then I concluded: “That’s exactly my job.”

I never betrayed myself. It has been sixty‑one years as an independent worker — and then, as a man.

Have a good day.

Nando