A KEY TO EMOTIONS

By Ángela López The differences between us human beings is fascinating.   Unique and irremediably beautiful in our own way.   Unfortunately, it takes us years of painful experiences to reach the feeling of appreciation for ourselves. When I was a child I couldn't fit into any group, I just liked to be alone in my world, which consisted of reading, drawing and running around.   I hated it when anyone else tried to draw me into childhood activities, but on the other hand, when I saw someone suffering, I would step out of my bubble to try to help.   As I got older I developed something that from my point of view is the ability to step into other people's shoes. So, when a waiter or waitress is unkind, I simply imagine a lot of possibilities as to why they are being mean; then, to the bad attitude, I return a warm smile.   However, I am still a very lonely woman who enjoys little or no parties with friends or family gatherings. For many, I am arrogant, conceited, ...

By Ángela López Be yourself! This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful exhortations today, although for many it has become just another cliché.  Interestingly, despite the call for originality, the truth is that when something goes outside the conventional parameters, people get scared.  This is why some of us prefer to pretend or hide our true selves, so that we don't feel rejected, ridiculed or even abused emotionally and/or physically. Nowadays, lying is like a protective shield against the darts of antipathy and public scorn, because if you show yourself as you are, there will be a lot of birds of prey ready to devour your self-esteem.  Paradoxically, we admire great figures of the seventh art, when in reality each one of us has played an infinite number of roles to avoid losing friends, getting ambitious jobs or maintaining idyllic loves. Hypocrisy has become a matter of survival, no longer even an option. A famous enemy of Batman is known as Two-Face , but... ...

My 15-month-old niece is the clear example of how to be surprised by life. She is happy crossing her small fingers, sighs and opens her bright eyes when she touches different textures, while with her gaze she looks amazed at the origin of the sounds.   The beautiful Julieta -my niece-, lives in constant admiration with this, which is now her world... In fact, even my curly hair has been the object of research by her.   And to think that we were all like that, with that fervent desire to discover everything around us; however, as we "learned" what it was about, we also got used to seeing it as something simple.   Although the question is, do we really know the value of everything we have already supposedly discovered? Or did we just take it for granted that we understood it? A rather popular saying says that, "You don't know what you have until it's gone.” This was exactly what I felt a few months ago when I suffered a terrible respiratory infection. I had...

If when we were learning to walk, we had remained on the floor for fear to fall back, we would have never learned how to give a step after another. The fear was not part of us back then, as our desire to discover the world was more intense than the hits of the falls.  However, over the years, instead of becoming more courageous by each reached challenge, we started to design "our own mental paralysis."  Moved like puppets by those negative representations of our self-image, we had forgotten how to keep the balance in our actions.  In such a way that, even if our bodies have learned how to walk, our minds still don't know how to direct progressively. Think, what do X-man Wolverine and us have in common? This comics-book mutant is made of a hard metal called "adamantium" which allows him to self-regenerate, just like that, regardless of the seriousness of his injuries due to his confrontations; he has the ability to fully recover. We, on the other hand...