The Courage to Feel in a World That Rushes

Sometimes people tell me I’m “out of touch” or “lost in the clouds.” At first, I took it as a strange remark, almost like a flaw. Today, I simply believe that some people look at life from a different angle. Maybe more sensitive. Maybe slower. Maybe deeper. We live in a time where everything has to happen fast. We must succeed fast, understand fast, heal fast, solve fast. Society pushes us to produce, to perform, to become optimized versions of ourselves. Even rest has to be productive. Even happiness seems to follow rules. So we move forward. We tick boxes. We chase goals. And without even realizing it, we drift away from something essential: feeling. Truly feeling. The taste of mango sticky rice when the mind finally slows down. The look of a tired person who still tries to smile. The cold wind on your skin that suddenly reminds you that you’re alive. These details seem tiny. Yet they may be the very things that give meaning to everything else. We often talk about highly sensitive people as if they were “too much.” Too emotional. Too fragile. Too intense. But what if this sensitivity is actually a strength? A rare ability to perceive what others have learned to ignore. Feeling deeply can hurt, yes. Because we absorb atmospheres. Words. Absences. Silences too. But it also allows us to love sincerely, to see beauty in simple things, and to understand emotions that many prefer to hide behind habits or screens. Maybe the problem is not hypersensitivity. Maybe the problem is a world that no longer knows how to listen. We think constantly — about a thousand things at once. The past. Tomorrow. Mistakes. Regrets. What we should have done or become. Our minds keep spinning like machines that cannot rest. And in the end, despite all these detours, we often come back to the same place — to ourselves. As if life keeps making us go in circles to teach us something essential that we refuse to see from the start. But what is this starting point? Maybe it does not really exist. Or maybe it is simply hidden beneath all the layers we have built to survive — expectations, fears, the image we project, the roles we play every day. Since childhood, we’re taught how to be accepted. Rarely how to be deeply aligned with what we feel. So we spend part of our lives becoming someone… and another part trying to rediscover who we were before. Strange when you think about it. We search for answers everywhere: in books, in relationships, in work, in social media, in the validation of others. Yet some of the truest moments happen in silence — in those suspended instants when we finally stop trying to understand and simply feel. Perception changes everything. Two people can live through the exact same situation and walk away with completely different realities. Because we do not see the world as it is. We see it through our wounds, our history, our sensitivity, and our way of loving. Maybe the truth is not singular. Maybe it shifts depending on the eyes that observe it. And in the end, being “lost in the clouds” may simply mean refusing to live on autopilot. It means continuing to ask questions in a world that prefers quick answers. It means searching for meaning where others see only routine. I'm sure we were not made to be perfect. I think we were made to be alive. Nuanced. Contradictory sometimes. Vulnerable too. And maybe the real courage today is not being the strongest. It is managing to remain deeply human in a world that slowly teaches us not to feel anymore. I get lost in my thoughts, I write to find my way home. Then the night begins again…