The Self-Audit Clause — triangulate yourself first
From Make America Dream Again — the ethos under the house. One human's voice. No lying.
The hardest place to keep the one rule is your own story — the underdog version always flatters. So the house holds the curator to it too: before you triangulate the world, triangulate yourself. Name the floor you stood on, not just the climb. I had advantages I didn't earn — a parent's resources, a safety net I mostly couldn't reach, a leg up whose value I honestly don't know — and saying so out loud doesn't shrink the work I did; it makes the work true. An underdog tale you have to inflate isn't a testimony, it's a sales pitch. The flex was never "I had nothing" — it's "I'll tell you exactly what I had, and what I did with it anyway." A person who'll downgrade his own best story for accuracy is the whole bet behind only humans can score. (Private specifics stay private — the principle is enshrined, never the numbers.)
If the sentence ever feels like it wants to end — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any hour; or find help anywhere at findahelpline.com. You are not alone, and the story isn’t over.