"It is often not the great catastrophes that bring us down, but the small, daily wear and tear."

BarcelonaOne summer day, Elsa found a small sparrow in front of her house that had just fallen from its nest. Despite its fragility, the bird displayed a strength and a natural instinct for survival that moved her deeply. She, who was also going through a period of transition and recovery, decided to care for it until it could fend for itself.

Throughout this process, she began to wonder how humans have lost the capacity to love and care for the planet. "The disconnection and isolation in which we live has alienated us from the world, and this is reflected in the major mental and emotional health problems we suffer," explains Elsa Punset, a popularizer and expert in personal growth who has just published the book Wings to fly (Destination, 2025).

"We are born with a great capacity for joy and curiosity, but life is difficult and soon come disappointments, losses, wounds and the difficulty in understanding what is happening to us," explains Punset, who in the book tries to expose the scars left by childhood, loneliness, broken loves, and the fear of others without being reciprocated.

"In the first years of life, we learn how to love, how to argue, how to survive. This is seared into our brains," the author continues. Adulthood, on the other hand, consists of understanding what we inherit and choosing what we want to preserve and what to transform. "All the great psychotherapists, such as Freud, Jung, and Fromm, describe the same journey in three stages: as children we adore our parents, as adolescents we judge them, as adults we understand and forgive them," Punset points out, asserting that one is not truly an adult until this work has been done.

Start over

In fact, he believes our life consists of two acts: the first part comprises all the years we spend trying to meet the expectations of our parents, society, or the image we have of ourselves. This first part, according to Punset, is usually "a giant and inevitable mistake." The second part, after having stumbled quite a bit, is when we truly discover who we are and what we want. "It's when you no longer seek approval, but truth. And it's not a specific chronological moment, but a psychological one," he continues. That is to say, you can be twenty-five and arrive, or eighty-five and still not have arrived. To know if you are in this phase, according to Punset, we must ask ourselves questions like: "What do I truly desire? Where do I need to grow? What fear must I face? What price will I pay if I don't dare to fly?"

The fact is that each of us carries within us the need to know who we are, despite difficulties and limitations. But, to reach this stage of growth, we have been able to address other, more basic needs, such as those related to the body and the ego. "The psychologist Abraham Maslow observed that people who are in this process tend to accept reality as it is, live more in the present, and need moments of solitude and silence," explains Punset.

These are people who don't seek external approval or control as much, and are capable of loving without being dependent. Furthermore, "they have a gentle sense of humor, a compassionate gaze, and a deep desire to contribute to the world," she adds. However, that doesn't mean this person is perfect or free of contradictions: "As psychologist Daniel Gilbert says, humans are a work in progress that we mistakenly believe is finished," she points out.

Get out of the noise

The problem we face in reaching that point of personal maturity, according to the author, is that we live in a "society of distraction." We move through such a noisy environment that it's difficult to listen to and clearly recognize how we feel. Therefore, she recommends trying to be alert to all the red flags that can warn us that something is wrong: persistent fatigue, loss of enthusiasm, irritability, lack of curiosity or creativity, words spoken to us that we don't hear or don't want to accept, or signs that we are overlooking other people.

“We need inner silence to be able to hear these signs: a walk, an afternoon without our phones, a moment of solitude. When we create this space, our compass readjusts itself. It’s not that life isn’t speaking to us, it’s that we’re too distracted to listen,” Punset emphasizes. The body always speaks to us, the mind never lies. “If anything, the mind confuses us and justifies anything, but the body speaks clearly: that knot in the stomach, insomnia, or discomfort are signals that guide us,” he points out.

Very often it's not major catastrophes that bring us down, but the small, daily wear and tear, Punset continues. "It's not necessarily the lack of love, health, or work that suffocates us the most, but the lack of opportunity, the feeling that our lives have been shrinking over the years," he clarifies.

In these cases, the author believes that what we need most is to recover our capacity to imagine. "Imagination is a form of hope: it allows us to visualize a different, broader, and more vibrant life. It invites us to start working to change concrete things," she continues. A simple gesture like asking yourself what your perfect day would be like is already opening a crack through which to let in the light.

Finally, Punset recalls, as he experienced while caring for the sparrow, that things like joy, tenderness, and connection with nature and others help us to take flight again. "Having wings to fly means learning to start over, again and again, without losing the hope and joy we had as children," he concludes.