The Fight for What You Deserve

This isn’t a polished essay. It’s a journey. It’s a conversation. A flow of curiosity, inviting you to wonder, to question, and maybe to see yourself or to find yourself in the spaces between the lines.

It’s not just about the words; it’s about where they take you if you let them. So, take a breath, let your mind wander, and come along with me.

Be careful what you wish for.

What comes to mind for you when you hear those words?

For me, those words, they hang over me. Like a warning, like a caution, like something I’ve learned to fear.

I’ve spent a lifetime wishing, not wishing, and faking wishes. Somewhere in all of that, there’s this shadow of a thought I heard said about me when I was a kid, and I’ve heard whispered too many times:

“I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone.”

Maybe you’ve heard it too. Maybe you’ve said it. Maybe you’ve felt it. Maybe it’s about your childhood, your past, your present, or your pain. Maybe it’s about something you’ve carried so long, you forgot it wasn’t supposed to be yours.

What is a wish, really?

When are you supposed to use it?

Is it for escaping a moment that feels unbearable?

Is it for stepping into something you can’t quite imagine but desperately want to believe in?

And if you’ve lived a life others wouldn’t dare to wish on someone, does that change what a wish even means?

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A handful of days before the doctors found the cancer in my kidney, I saw my first shooting star. I was driving home from the gym, and there it was, right in front of me. I closed my eyes for a moment, pretending to make a wish. I faked it. No one else was in the truck. Just me. And still, I faked it.

Why?

Because I was afraid. Afraid to ask for something better. Afraid that better that might demand even more of me and I was already barely holding on. Afraid that wishing might somehow dismiss the life I’d already fought for. Afraid there wasn’t any “better” left for me to claim. And yet, in that moment, I needed better more than ever.

What was your last wish?

I was a kid, standing in my grandma’s kitchen in Glens Falls. It was a holiday, and I’d won the wishbone. I don’t remember the exact words of the wish, but I can still feel the feeling: desperate, raw, and unrelenting. I just wanted the abuse to stop.

I would have traded my whole life for that one wish to be granted.

Imagine the agony of waiting for that wish to come true.

Think about it for a moment.

Being a kid, enduring unimaginable pain, holding the wishbone, believing this was it.

This was the way out.

I don’t remember how long it took but I decided the wish wasn't even going to come true. 

It wasn’t the wishbone. It wasn't anyone around me. 

It came down to a decision, a moment when I decided that it was up to me to make it happen.

I had to fight for it.

Have you ever had a wish come true?

Did it just happen, or did you have to do something for it?

My wish to live a life free from abuse wasn’t coming true, so I had to make it happen.

So why bother, right? If it’s all on you anyway, why wish for something at all?

That seems like a pretty good reason to fake every wish after that.

It explains why I stood in front of shooting stars, birthday candles, and wishing wells and couldn’t bring myself to wish for more.

As a kid, I just wanted to know what it was like to live without abuse. Doesn’t every kid deserve that?

I had to fight for it.

As a man, I just wanted to stop carrying the weight alone, to trust in and be a part of something greater, to trust in myself, to feel connected again, and to believe that I didn’t have to keep fighting like this just to live a life I couldn’t even feel.

Doesn’t every man deserve that?

But what do I deserve?

Is life really about fighting for what you deserve?

Do you even know what you deserve? Do you know how to figure it out?

And here’s the question that stops me cold: Who decides what you deserve?

That question forces you to sit with everything you believe about yourself. Not just the good, but the mess, the doubts, the whispers of “Who do you think you are to want this? To deserve this?”

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Who do you think you are? 

Am I the kid who made the wish?

Am I the kid who had to fight for what every kid deserves?

Am I the man who stands here now, on the edge of a life that feels unbelievable?

Am I the man here now wondering if it’s really true?

Am I one? Am I all? None? Something in between?

The answer isn’t in the wishing, is it? The answer isn’t in the hoping, or even the dreaming.

The answer is in the becoming.

Not who I was.

Not who I thought I’d be.

But who I choose to be now.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s who I’ve been all along.

Maybe the secret about wishes isn’t that they’re up to you to fight for but that they’re up to you to be.

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In February 2024, sitting in my recliner, I had a vision as clear as day about an incredible life. It wasn’t a wish. It wasn’t a dream. It was a reality that had been waiting for me, just sitting there, beyond my fears. And it was also a life I would never have dared to wish for.

The life in that vision was too good, and I struggled with that for a long time. It was that very struggle that led me straight to my repressed memories. Because why wouldn’t I deserve a life like that? Or maybe the bigger question, the real question, is why did it feel wrong to even consider that it might be for me? That I might be worthy of that life.

Next thing I know, I’m standing on the edge of living that life, and I find myself frozen again. Knowing that it’s only the beginning. That vision is only the beginning of something much bigger. It was never the end; it was the beginning.

Imagine getting right up to the life you wouldn’t dare to even wish for just 10 months earlier, and then freezing again. Stuck. Resisting it and wondering why it’s not here yet while actively keeping it from becoming, with a single, simple step.

I had a list of reasons why I wasn’t taking that step. And underneath those reasons, those breadcrumbs of fear and hesitation. was an answer. An answer to bigger questions.

Why am I afraid of this life?

I’ve been resisting because I’ve realized something deeper: this is only the beginning. This next step isn’t about survival or figuring it out as I go.

This life requires an entirely different kind of trust. The kind that doesn’t ask, “What if it falls apart?” but instead asks, “If it starts with a life I would never have dared dream of, and if I know this is only the beginning, can I still believe I deserve it?”

The fear isn’t about the success. It’s about the weight of showing up fully, without armor, and trusting that I’m enough to hold whatever comes next. It’s not about proving myself anymore. It’s about knowing, deeply and unshakably, that I’ve already earned it.

No safety nets. No survival mode. Just me.

And now, here I am.

My name is Scott Fasano. I am a soon-to-be bestselling author, a healer, a teacher, and an entrepreneur that is going to change the world.

I am soon to be living in Davidsonville, Maryland, in the house my wife has always dreamed of, living the life I never dared to wish for.

And it was all made possible by a kid who had to fight for the life he deserved – a life no kid should ever have to fight for.

But he did.

I wouldn’t wish that fight on anyone.

And yet, I’m immensely grateful for it. Because it made me the man I am today and the man I will be tomorrow.

This and everything that comes after it is all for him and everyone like him.

That’s who I am.

Who are you?