I always wondered where I went wrong in life.

Recently, a conversation led me back to the same conclusion my mother had shared with me almost 20 years ago - you can't give what you don't have.

All my life I demanded, like a hungry wolf pack charging at its prey, and I didn't spare myself either. I could work on the cure to cancer and tear it all down in a week because I didn't like the way it looked. This is what I was taught growing up, watching and living with the mentality monsters of our time. You always wanted to be like them, but as you grow older, with the benefit of hindsight, you realise you became the villain.

I've been doing some introspection on how the past decade of my life has gone, especially my interpersonal relationships. It didn't start with a therapist's couch or some grand moment of clarity. It started at a park, a quiet Tête-à-tête with a friend who tried to explain to me why he thinks I act the way I do. If I'm honest, my first instinct was to brush it off. But he was right. For the most part, he was right - and that's the part that stayed with me long after I left that bench. Because when someone who knows you holds a mirror up and you still flinch - that flinch is the confession.

The truth is, demanding is a horrible trait. It strained relationships. It led me to ask and demand what some people, as my mother said, simply didn't have to give.

I asked for love from people who had never been shown it. I asked for peace from people still at war with themselves. I asked for empathy from people who had been so hardened by life that feeling had become a luxury they couldn't afford. I asked for forgiveness from people who had never been taught that they themselves were worthy of it. I asked for grace from people who had never once been given any.

And the worst part? Some of them tried. God, some of them tried. But you cannot pour from what was never filled - and I kept showing up with an empty cup expecting an ocean.

This isn't a hit piece. It's my way of telling myself - it wasn't them. They simply didn't have it to give.

As we all sat to watch Pep's final interviews and documentary, one moment caught me - where he said if he could correct one mistake, it would be to give Joe Hart another chance. It led me thinking. Not that I have 40 years of experience in my career, but however short mine has been, I've met a lot of people I never gave the grace, while demanding everything they simply couldn't give. Some people come to mind, but my mind has been stuck on one in particular as of recent. And I feel not bad, but relieved. Relieved that I now understand it wasn't that I was the incompatible arsehole - it's that I played my hand and kept asking for what was never there to begin with.

I'm not saying don't demand. I'm saying demand where there is something to give. I'm not saying don't strive - but use measured actions, lest you risk losing everything you've built take lesson from Daedalus warning to Icarus. Remember - you can't catch the wind in your fist.

As I blow out my candles - lies, I used an LED light - and close the ink - another lie -I hope we strive to detach(strong word) oursleves from situation where we ask for a mule to run a horse race.

Remember - you can't give what you don't have. And neither could they.