I fall in love very quickly.
A shy smile, a few seconds of eye contact, a gentle touch of the hand, a shared laugh.

I grew to hate, then romanticize, and finally understand this phenomenon. Why is this happening to me, and to so many others?

Just like so many other dynamics, this too comes from deep memories of the past: traumas, rejection & neglect patterns.

There were moments in your life, during your childhood, teenage years, and even adulthood, when you associated being worthy, enough with being loved. And you attached your entire being to that.

If I can make my mom smile, I win.

If I can conquer that emotionally unavailable girl or boy, I win.

I can fix him.

I can fix her.

If I can make my dad hug me, I am finally enough.

Love was always conditional for you.

Repeated patterns of rejection, neglect, and abuse wired your brain to think that love is something you have to earn.

You were shown love and kindness only on the condition that you did something for them. If you behaved. If you hid your feelings well. If you kept your opinions to yourself so as not to cause trouble. If you were quiet.

And sometimes, not even that was enough.

You grew up thinking love must be acts of service, that it must be performing a role, hiding your true colors, and behaving as someone’s perfect child, girlfriend, boyfriend.

“Love is to be earned, and my worth is directly attached to being chosen.”

“I am worthy only if I am chosen. If I am in a romantic relationship. If I am behaving correctly.”

How can I possibly heal from this?

Let me break it down for you: it’s not your fault.

All these responses were methods you had to use in order to survive. To feel loved and approved in a toxic environment.

Everybody deserves to be loved. And conditional love, the love you earned by performing a role, putting on a mask, swallowing your feelings and opinions, my darling, that is not real love. It never was.

Grieve the little girl or little boy who had to go through all that trauma and pain. You were just a child.

Start refusing to beg for love when, as a matter of fact, you were born deserving of it.

You were never meant to be chosen. You were meant to be seen. Seen as your true self, not as the role you learned to play just to survive. Seen as your authentic, imperfect self. You are deserving of love even on your ordinary days. You don’t have to pretend to be perfect. You can let go now.

Those toxic environments and people no longer hold the power over you that they once did when you were a child. You are safe now. You can save yourself. Throw away that mask. Discover yourself first. Love yourself.

Because there is no one out there who can possibly know you as deeply as you know yourself. No matter how many years have passed, you will always be there for yourself. So, you better start cultivating a relationship with yourself.

You have to learn to be your best friend. You are the only one who can save yourself, the only one with the power to walk away from situations that don’t serve you well, from people who exploit and abuse you. You are your own savior.

Then, get to know yourself. Set boundaries. Ask yourself: what are my non-negotiables in a relationship? Start recognizing when you’re getting overly excited over the bare minimum. Discover what makes you angry, happy, sad, and why. And love yourself harder than anyone else.

When you finally accept this truth - that you are lovable just as you are, and that you are already deeply loved simply because you exist - you will finally breathe.

You will finally see how simple life is.

And yes, some people won’t like this new version of you. They’ll tell you that you’ve changed. They’ll call you selfish, crazy, weird. Just let them. It only means they loved the mask you wore, not your true self.

And when you finally let go of your mask and show your true colors, you will attract people who truly love you for who you are. Isn’t that wonderful?

This craving for love and attention is just an echo. Your younger self waiting for someone to pick them up and save them.

You grew up searching for validation from the outside. A savior, a knight, a miracle. But the true validation, you must seek comes only from yourself. The true miracle is you.

So stop searching for external validation, for that ultimate proof that you are enough. Live now, fully confident that you already are worthy, loved, and enough- because you are you. You exist. And you are perfect.

‘I’ve always had a soft spot for her.’

‘He disarms me.’

Love, even in figurative language, is often described as a fault, a true vulnerability, both mental and physical.

But since when has love become something negative? Something to be ashamed of? Something to hide?

Humans are more open to express hate or frustration, rather than love and joy. And it’s been scientifically proven.

We are hardwired to feel negative emotions more intensely. Some people would even argue that this is proof that we humans are pre-programmed to always be unhappy and dissatisfied.

Ah-ha! That’s why! Am I condemned to a miserable existence then?

The structure and mechanisms of our brain do not justify your unhappy existence. Or at least, not entirely. You always get to choose.

The human species has existed for about 200,000 years — a lot has changed since then. To survive, our ancestors had to constantly be alert, to sleep with one eye open, and they genuinely felt anxious and scared most of the time due to the countless dangers lurking.

It’s not a surprise, then, that our brain has inherited that anxiety and sadness after thousands of years. Because it worked to let them live.

The problem many face in the past century is exactly shaking off all that anxiety and dissatisfaction we seem to be naturally, biologically condemned to.

A large part of the world’s population no longer has to worry about finding food to avoid starving or seeking shelter from the elements for the night. Yet, we are unhappy.

Loving is… cringe?

I grew up in a rather closed-off family.

My parents always expressed their love in their own way, but often, it wasn’t expressed at all, and they would reject my attempts to express myself.

To this day, I recognize that after years of rejections and fears, my brain formed this false equation:

Expressing love = rejection = danger.

Trauma, too, plays a major role in dragging us deeper into hate.

We spread hate rather than love, because it feels easier, it feels empowering. We feed our ego by filling our mouths with complaints, with words of discouragement, with hatred towards everything and everyone, because ‘we are better than them’.

We divide instead of uniting, we carry our convictions to the grave, because opening up to change would mean admitting we were wrong.

And indeed, especially in recent years, expressing love and sincere respect toward someone is increasingly seen as a weakness to hide, or even cringe.

Showing love puts you in a position where you’re vulnerable because you’re opening your heart, you’re being real, you’re exposing the purest feeling your heart generates: it literally moves the whole world.

That’s why we are almost scared to express it. “It’s so beautiful, I don’t want anyone to see it and ruin it” — that’s basically what we are doing.
Because what if? What if people take advantage of it? What if people won’t react the way you expected them to react? What if they don’t like what you say? What if you get misunderstood?

You don’t really know how important you are.

From all this great reserve we feel toward love, a beautiful truth still emerges:

We’ll forever be more loved than we could ever imagine.

This could be interpreted in a positive or negative way, heart-warming or devastating. Whenever you can, always prefer the positive interpretation.

Yes, with immense effort you could sit down and think of a person you love and deeply respect. You could write them a letter, explaining just how much they mean to you. But you’ll never be able to explain with mere words how they make you feel.

You can’t truly make them feel on their own skin how your heart beats faster when you see them, or how you immediately smile every time you think about them, or all these subtle things you feel in your heart every single day.

And the same way you can’t quite express it, someone feels the exact same way about you. You are much more worthy than you think you are. You are much more important than you think you are. And you will forever be more loved than you could ever imagine. Because you are someone else’s light out there.

Love as a choice.

We are led to believe that expressing hate is a form of power, and it makes us stronger somehow. And expressing love and appreciation is a weakness nobody should dare to expose.

In a world where you can’t control other people’s feelings, opinions, judgments, always choose love.

You can’t control other people’s emotions, but you can control your own. Your own thoughts, your own actions, your own words. You are in power to choose kindness every day, no matter how dark the world is out there.

While one’s alive, one must love as much as they possibly can.

If it’s true I have the power to control at least my inner world while the external world screams at me, I choose to live with ease and deeply love people around me.

Hate doesn’t lead anywhere but to chaos. It’s so easy to express hate. It’s so easy to complain, to argue, to start wars, to die for an ideal, for a different country, a different world. While we forget that the whole point is right in front of us.

Love is all we have. And rather than a weakness, it’s the most powerful tool we have to make us happy, to make life worth it.

And all those what ifs buzzing in your head — observe them, then let them go. Do it scared. Go out there and tell them you love them.

And if they don’t respond the way you hoped they would, remember: you love them exactly as they are. They don’t need to meet your expectations — or anyone else’s.

And if they respond with coldness or cruelty, remember: love given is never wasted. Their reaction speaks about them, not about you.

They might simply lack the emotional tools to respond differently.

Life is happening right in front of your eyes. Make it an amazing one.

In fact, what is nostalgia, if not the feeling that reality is different from how it once was, and a longing for it to be a little more like the past? Like that carefree childhood, those golden years full of friendships and fun, that warm summer, when that person was still in our life, or still alive, when everything seemed to be going better.

Yeah, but was it really better?

Our brain tends to idealize memories, focusing on the highlights of a certain event, and smoothing over the rough edges.

This happens for two reasons:

• Selective memory: it’s the human tendency for our brain to remember certain events or small details that resonate with the individual, while forgetting the irrelevant ones.
• Fading affect bias (FAB): the psychological phenomenon where memories associated with negative emotions are forgotten more easily than those associated with positive emotions.

We can say, then, that most likely when we feel nostalgic, we’re largely remembering the good moments and sweeping the negative ones under the rug, even though both were happening at the same time.

Fine, but you could argue that this awareness doesn’t take away from the fact that you feel sad right now and that you wish you could relive those moments, that past.

What I want you to understand is that, first of all, since you are here thinking about the past, it means that you are alive. And second, it means that yes, you had amazing experiences in your past.

Why are we turning that into a bad feeling at all?

Because you’re there, maybe in your room, listening to sad music and thinking ‘oh, how I wish I could go back’. But it doesn’t make sense, because that moment is dead.

The landscapes you see in your memories are dead, because they no longer exist, or at the very least, they’ve changed since the past. Their appearance, their warmth, even your perception of them — they wouldn’t evoke the exact same emotions anymore.

And above all, the people who live in your memories no longer exist as they did then. Because everything is temporary, and we change constantly, like a river.

I’m not the same person I was back then. I’m not even the same person I was five minutes ago! And neither is that person you’re thinking about.

So, even if you could relive that moment, you wouldn’t be the same person you were. It would be a different reality.

This truth hurts. It hits like a punch in the stomach. And your mind will try to convince itself otherwise.

“But if only I could travel back in time!”

“No, it’s not true, I’m still the same person I was back then!”

These are all lies we tell ourselves to make sense of the chaos in our minds. Try to sit with the feelings that are surfacing. Feel them deeply, don’t be afraid of them. And then, let them go.

When you accept this — that the past is the past, and it’s dead — then you could try to switch your mindset. Next time that you’re feeling nostalgic, instead of thinking to yourself, ‘I wish I could go back…’

You could instead think, ‘I am grateful’.

I am grateful to be alive and I am grateful for this feeling too, because if I am here getting to experience nostalgia, it means that I am alive, that I am well, and that I am living life the way that it’s supposed to be lived: having fun, meeting amazing people, seeing beautiful places, loving.

Nostalgia is a very natural feeling born from Love itself, because you either felt loved or you gave love. I want you to know that all the love you gave to someone, it’s never wasted. It’s always right. It’s exactly what life is supposed to be about. To love and to allow yourself to be loved deeply. Because you deserve it.

Don’t twist these beautiful past memories into something sad or to be desperate about. The past is the past. Do not attach to feelings tied to the past, because people change constantly and everything is temporary.

Just be grateful for these feelings. Welcome them. And watch them go. Because it means that you are alive. It means that you’re doing well. It means that you’re living life the way it’s supposed to be lived. Then celebrate. And open your heart to welcome ever more of these beautiful moments, here and now.

Well, I know it’s happened to me.

How is it possible that your family, your friends, your partner, your neighbor, and even your pets all have a different idea of who you really are?

How is it possible that my mother often calls me selfish, when one of the qualities my closest friends love and mention most about me is my kindness and generosity?

Who’s right? Or maybe neither of them is. Maybe I’m a third person no one’s managed to uncover yet. Am I a fraud? Am I tricking everyone?

This kind of “polidualism” has always made me reflect (and honestly, confused me) since I was a child. Like a lot of teenagers, I grew a wild, primal, almost animal hunger to get to know myself — to stick labels on who I was, to better understand my identity. I hoped that once I found the reasons behind the way I felt certain things, acted certain ways, and thought certain thoughts, that heavy curtain of questions hanging over my head would finally be torn away.

I put myself through a sort of personal screening: personality tests, analyses, online quizzes, religious and spiritual texts, I even went through several rounds of therapy.

I wanted an answer for everything. I didn’t want a single doubt left about who the hell I was.

But I soon realized all those labels were too tight. I felt like I was more than that diagnosis, that orientation, that personality type, that faith, that analysis.

Everything I felt, experienced, saw, observed, the way I lived my life, couldn’t be reduced to a simple name or an anonymous acronym.

It just didn’t capture me.

Trying to know yourself, to label yourself is like trying to fit the entire ocean into a glass. We are that infinite.

That doesn’t change the fact that every one of us still needs to feel recognized by something greater than ourselves. To feel part of something. To not feel so alone in the universe.

We need to feel seen, to feel like we’re not losing our minds; because out there, there are people just like you.

Don’t get me wrong, discovering yourself is crucial and necessary to feel at home in your own skin.

But it’s just as important to remember:

There’s more to you than that definition. There’s you.

Yeah… but who am I, really?

I’m quiet around some people, because something in me tells me not to trust them, like a kind of selective sixth sense.

I’m a hurricane of joy around others, because my heart feels safe and I know they’d never judge me; in fact, they’d probably join my chaotic dance of euphoria.

I’m shy around certain people, because I don’t know them well enough to show my full colors. Or maybe because they intimidate me and I want to proceed with caution… because I’m the kind of girl who falls in love easily.

So then, which one am I, really?

I’ve been asking myself this question for years. It was only recently, after reading a beautiful book on Buddhism (“Profondo come il mare, leggero come il cielo” by Gianluca Gotto), that I began to find a clearer answer.

I’m all of them. I’m everything. I’m the entire universe. And so are you.

Because there’s no dualism in this life. There is no real separation between me and the world, between spirit and matter, between mind and body. Everything is One — or more precisely, not-two.

The divisions our mind applies — inside/outside, good/bad, self/other — exist on a relative level, but they’re not absolute truths. Because those divisions are just illusions.

Imagine You’re in a Dream.

In the dream, you’re the dreamer, maybe walking through a city. You see people, objects, houses, the sky, and everything seems real. There’s a you (the subject), and everything you perceive (the objects).

But then you wake up.

And you realize: everything — you, the other people, the streets — was all made of the same mental substance. There was no real separation between you and the rest of the dream. You were everything. Everything was a unified expression of the mind.

Because the ego doesn’t exist. It’s nothing more than a mental construct, invented by humans to bring order into chaos. A convenient convention.

Look at a photo of yourself from ten years ago: that person is not you. How could it be? Your face has changed, your hair, your thoughts, your dreams, your life.

Everything changes. And so do you. Constantly, inevitably. Like water endlessly flowing through the bed of a river.

So why do we cling to labels, to identities?

If we truly realize that nothing lasts in this life, maybe we’d start to focus on what actually matters. On what truly exists:

The present moment. The perfection of life as it happens. Right now.

DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Spanish for “I should have taken more photos”) is the latest album by Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican singer and rapper.

It is a true musical triumph, one that the singer himself did not expect to achieve.

It is an album that doesn’t aim to be pop, but to be genuine.

The album transcends the language barrier and goes viral on a global scale. Entire stadiums sell out within minutes for the artist’s worldwide tour.

The song sharing the album’s title has become an anthem of nostalgia, as well as a viral trend on social media, where users share thoughts, photos, and tributes to lost loved ones, childhood memories, and places filled with history.

The entire album revolves around a feeling of melancholy for the past – both the recent past (with recurring references to a breakup) and the more distant past, denouncing the still-open wounds of colonization.

The song that highlights this aspect more than any other is Lo Que Le Pasó A Hawai’i.

Three minutes and fifty-one seconds of pure reflection. The song is slow, almost meditative, with a much more stripped-down sound compared to the more radio-friendly reggaetón tracks. Bad Bunny seems to want to offer the world not just catchy, commercial dance music, but also something to listen to with the soul and heart.

There are no pounding reggaetón beats or club basslines; instead, we find an ethereal, spacious production that leaves plenty of room for the voice and the message.

Bad Bunny wants the listener to focus on the lyrics, which strike like a dagger to the heart. A letter of love and fear to his people, whose future the artist deeply worries about.

Se oye al jíbaro llorando, otro más que se marchó / No quería irse pa’ Orlando, pero el corrupto lo echó.

Translation: You can hear the jíbaro (symbol of the Puerto Rican identity) crying, another one who left. / He didn’t want to go to Orlando (popular destination for puerto rican immigrants), but the corrupt one pushed him out.

But it’s also a clear political message, shining a spotlight on colonization and the devastating history of Hawai’i. With this flag-bearing album, the rapper claims his past and denounces the monster of colonization.

Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa / Quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya / No, no suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai / Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái

Translation: They want to take my river and my beach too / They want my neighborhood, and for my grandma to leave / No – don’t let go of the flag, don’t forget the lelolai (traditional Puerto Rican folk chants) / Because I don’t want them to do to you what they did to Hawai’i.

But what happened to Hawaii?

Once an independent and sovereign nation, the Kingdom of Hawai‘i was overthrown in 1893 by a group of American businessmen and sugar plantation owners with the backing of U.S. military forces. Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of Hawai‘i, was deposed in a coup that many Native Hawaiians and historians consider illegal. Despite strong resistance and petitions from Native Hawaiians, the U.S. formally annexed Hawai‘i in 1898 without a vote from its people. In 1959, Hawai‘i became the 50th state of the United States.

Native Hawaiians have been displaced from their ancestral lands due to tourism, real estate development, and military occupation. Traditional practices and language were suppressed for decades, and today, Native Hawaiians remain one of the most economically and socially marginalized groups in the state.

“There’s a lot of political lines that you can’t tell are political. I’m a normal human being and I have feelings and I get mad and I get happy and that’s how I make my music. Sometimes you want to cry, sometimes you want to dance, sometimes you want to fall in love and sometimes you want to talk about political things.” – Bad Bunny

My eyelids were drooping, I hardly slept that night, as I did every night. Or perhaps, they were closing as if in protest, a bodily and unconscious rebellion — were they also tired of seeing the same things over and over again? This sad face, this cold, small bathroom, this hole of an apartment, this gray city, that cramped office?

I adjusted my tie and long coat, and slipped my cap over my head. Maybe it could help contain all these thoughts.
Setting foot outside the house, the gray sky filled with me, with us.
So many people, humans, very composed, straight and elegant, rained down on the city. At one point, there were so many of us that I wondered, floating and in midair, if we were falling or if, on the contrary, we were harmoniously and neatly ascending to the clouds, as in an elevator, against gravity.

I looked around me, that morning, not like every morning, I was surrounded by me, by us, by my peers and equals.
“And even as I fall (or ascend), I am precise,” I thought, looking at the many me’s in midair, lined up, the impeccable coats falling down their bodies, the fedoras on their heads, the serious looks. None of the me seemed to wonder what was happening. They simply accepted their fate.

“I fall, or I ascend,” nothing more, or nothing less.

This thought began to disturb me. Is this how I want to live my life? Accepting everything, not fighting for anything? Abandoning that curiosity I felt as a child, however, for my surroundings? Do I really want to fall? Or rise?

That morning I woke up at 5 o’clock, as I did every day. I turned off the alarm clock with mechanical, automatic movement. I smiled. And I went back to sleep.

“I deserve it.”

Could it be that in warmer countries, where the sun shines bright all year long, people are happier because the light of the Great Star fills their eyes, making them squint, and pulls the corners of their mouths upward in a spontaneous smile? Like a placebo effect on the brain?

The first time I heard this concept, «the warmer the weather, the warmer the people,» was in high school.

I was sitting at my desk, doodling in my notebook, and our stern teacher lit up in a smile.

It was rare to see her face contorted into that expression – a strange, unsettling yet contagious little smirk framed by her blonde bob. As much as that woman scared me, there was no doubt she loved her job and what she taught: French literature.

«Montesquieu, writer and philosopher, was the first to propose the idea that climate influences human behavior, and entire societies, too! He argued that people in warmer climates tend to be more passionate and emotional, while those in colder climates are more reserved and rational,» she said. Then, her smile twisted into a – even more disturbing, - kind of interrogative grimace.

«What do you think? I personally could not agree more. See, in my hometown, down in southern Italy, people are welcoming and cheerful, whereas here in the north, I notice a great difference in character. A sort of… closure.»

She clasped her hands and squinted her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line. She loved slipping in anecdotes about her little town by the Mediterranean whenever the opportunity arose. I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth had driven her to come here, to the freezing cold of Piedmont.

That idea stayed with me, perhaps because of her passion, though I didn’t fully grasp its meaning until much later.

It was a sunny but chilly January day here in Lisbon. I slipped my book into my bag, grabbed a towel, and headed to the beach.

There weren’t many people around, which made it all the more special.

A few meters to my left, a mother and two little girls were singing a nursery rhyme in Portuguese, clapping their hands in rhythm. The older sister, maybe six years old, corrected the younger one enthusiastically and loudly as she stumbled over the words and lost the beat. Their mother laughed and joined in the game.

A group of kids nearby were digging holes in the soft, cool sand while their parents toasted with beers, smiling on a large beach towel.

Everywhere I looked, my eyes were filled with beauty.

And when an elderly couple walked past me with their eyes half-closed against the sun and their faces stretched into smiles, I thought of my teacher’s words.

Could it be true that people tend to be happier in warm, tropical countries – even when they’re sometimes poor – because the sun naturally makes our faces contract into a smile?

The thought filled my heart with tenderness.

«It doesn’t matter,» I thought.

«Look at all this life.»

How I changed my life without any clue of what I was doing.

“How do I dump my girlfriend?”

“I hate my job, but how can I change that?”

“How can I change my life?”

You simply make the change.

For certain things, there is no such thing as “the perfect moment” or the fleeting instant to seize where everything will surely go right. You will never feel completely ready, and that’s okay. What you need to do is close your eyes, grit your teeth, and take the leap anyway. Do it scared, do it terrified, do it uncertain – just do it. Just jump.

Today is a great day.

After stuffing myself with the leftovers from the New Year’s Eve dinner, I grabbed my headphones, put on my shoes, and headed out the door.

I’m in Cais do Sodré, in the heart of Lisbon. The streets smell of grilled fish, the wind pinches my cheeks and brushes through my hair, and the sun shines brightly, warming my soul. It hardly feels like winter.

Walking these streets again, my hands tingle, and I don’t walk – I float lightly. All the experiences I’ve lived, the bad ones and especially the good ones, resurface in my mind, bringing me to where I am today. Perhaps the feeling I’m experiencing is pride.

I decided to move to Lisbon without any real reason. I hadn’t found a job, nor a permanent place to stay. But it “inspired me.” And that day, January 7, 2024, I simply decided to follow my instinct, my heart, which was shouting LISBON. So I packed my suitcase and backpack, boarded a plane from Milan, and landed here.

2023 had been a rather complicated year for me. The death of my grandfather, the chaos at home, and family stress. But when I saw the Cristo Rei illuminated through the airplane window, I promised myself that as soon as I stepped out of that airport, I would become the best version of myself. Because here is where I was meant to be. And that’s exactly what I did.

I ordered an Uber to reach the low-cost hostel I had booked at the last minute for a three-week stay. A bunk bed shared in a large room with five other people. The fear was there, but I didn’t show it. And in that hostel, I met incredible people, but most importantly, I met myself.

I’ve always been a rather reserved person. But once you earn my trust, I can be very open, cheerful, and spontaneous.

Crossing the threshold of that hostel, I put on my best smile and simply decided to ignore that annoying little voice called insecurity. I actively chose to think positively, to say “Yes” more often, and to let my thoughts flow out of my mouth instead of keeping them trapped and locked away in my head. I simply decided. And it was as easy as it sounds.

Within those walls, I learned to recognize a part of myself that I had been ignoring for years, along with many important life lessons.

1. We are one ‘Hi’ away from meeting a good friend, the love of our lives, a person we will admire forever, or simply a fun night out.

We are all strangers to this world. For everyone, it’s the first time we’re living this life, and we all want to make the most of it in our own way. It’s incredible how we remain strangers until, simply, we decide not to be anymore. And as much as social anxiety can be destabilizing (and I know it well, we’re often best friends), it always warms my heart to know that the person next to me, the one I see in passing, or anyone around us can potentially be an important person in your life, or simply an admirer.

2. We will always be loved more than we can ever think of.

This is the saddest truth of life, but also extremely heartwarming. Have you ever stopped to think, “Wait a minute, am I… the worst human being ever?”

Well, I sure have! Plenty of times.

Not that I’ve ever particularly harmed anyone, mocked children in an orphanage, or done any other disturbing things a human being can do. I actually consider myself kind and generous, above average even. But sometimes, our inner voice just doesn’t care about how you made your colleague laugh this morning or helped the elderly lady across the street – no, no, let’s go back to when you said “good morning” in maybe too brusque a way to the cashier. Oh, that is some real “bad person” material.

The truth is that the human brain loves to focus on the negative: negative bias, to use the correct term. It’s the same principle why, out of a hundred positive reviews, we give more attention and importance to that one negative one.

It’s not our fault, we were born this way, but an important step to take is to acknowledge this negative bias and act upon it. Remind yourself of the great things you did or said every day. See the good in you. Because, believe it or not, we will always be loved and appreciated more than we could ever imagine.

A colleague at work might find your mere presence calming or reassuring. A stranger on the subway heard your laugh and found it sweet. A friend adores you and admires you more than you can believe. And a fellow traveler in the hostel still admires you from afar for all the beautiful memories you shared together.

3. Love at first sight is real.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not just talking about romantic love. I’m also talking about platonic love.

I used to think that love at first sight was one of those little things invented by some director to make their movie more exciting, kind of like walking in slow motion while cars explode behind you in terrifying flames.

But no. Love exists. And in these fleeting moments in the hostel room, where so many tourists and explorers meet, coming from different backgrounds, different lives, different purposes, you realize just how close we all really are.

We all want just one thing: to be happy, to live this life. It doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, what language you speak. For God’s sake, I don’t even need this hostel to be perfect, or for me to have hot water for a shower!

Because I see your face light up with a smile and your eyes shine, and together with mine, we’ll make sparks damn it!

But that’s not all! Humans seem to be so fascinated by these two letters, AI, that it has spread like a sort of marketing strategy to include this acronym in any app or minimally technological tool: the era of AI-in-everything.

The unsettling dystopia into which we are slowly sinking is similar to the one depicted in the Disney Pixar film WALL-E (2008), where humans survive in a sterile and luxurious environment without making the slightest physical effort.

In fact, what all these AI-powered creations have in common is that they aim to minimize the amount of ‘work’ (physical and/or mental) required from humans as much as possible.

ChatGPT can easily solve any math problem you encounter without the slightest mental effort; if you’re not an artist, the internet is full of websites that can generate any (and I mean any) vision you have in mind; and remember that challenging, yet rewarding thing called parenting? Forget every little challenge! AI will make your life easier.

The saddest thing about all this is that every AI device seems to have a common goal: to deprive us of any challenge we might encounter in life.

But we’re forgetting one important thing, that life is made of challenges, and it’s precisely these that give it meaning.

I know that raising a child is extremely complicated, but what could be better and more rewarding in life than watching your little one grow up with the values, education, and love that you, as parents, have instilled in them?

I know it’s hard to find time for your children, but do you really want their best memories to be of bedtime stories told by a robotic voice?

It’s true that drawing, writing, and any other art you want to cultivate are difficult to practice, and often we feel discouraged and just want to give up. However, your success will be even more satisfying and meaningful when you realize that you’ve overcome every obstacle and discouragement. You don’t want your work to be tainted by a cold, expressionless, and generic hand like AI. (And let’s be honest, it’s obvious when a piece of work is genuinely yours or not!)

As useful and important as this discovery may be for humanity, we should try to take a step back and not allow our lives to be completely shaped by this new reality.

If life has no specific purpose, we might as well be living it.

Simply finding fulfillment in the small things by living in the moment.

When I fall asleep,

I meet you again

And it’s like you never left.

We cry, we laugh, we climb to the top of the sky

«Is mom okay?» You ask, with your shiny little eyes

«Yes she is,» I reply, holding you tight

And as we watch the sunrise, you’re as light as the clouds

And the wind might blow you away

«Everything will be okay»

I never trusted me more.

«I’m happy you’re here»

I never loved me more.