It was a cold dawn. The relentless rain, coupled with the icy winter wind, made the short route from the train station to Loureiro’s workshop, a cobbler fond of philosophy books and red wine, feel like a long polar journey. Betrayed by a change in wind direction as I turned a corner, my umbrella broke. The wool of my wet overcoat offered no barrier against the wind, which could turn bones to ice. The narrow and winding streets, paved with centuries-old, uneven, and slippery stones, didn’t allow me to quicken my pace. Entering the workshop brought a feeling of coziness, both from the warmth of the space and the reunion with a dear friend. Without delay, he hung my coat to dry and lent me a jacket. Two steaming mugs of coffee were placed on the old wooden counter. I was still trembling from the aftereffects of a cold that was no longer present. A keen observer, Loureiro remarked, “Worries are like that. We suffer for things that don’t exist.”
I asked why he said that. The artisan explained, “Words can hide feelings. Facial expressions, and especially the eyes, never do”. He took a sip of coffee and said, “Something is preventing your usual joy. Only misunderstandings about the unstable and seemingly erratic movements of life have the power to rob us of that virtue so essential to happiness.”
I argued that, to a greater or lesser extent, we all have problems. Therefore, we all have worries. The cobbler replied, “Undoubtedly, problems or difficulties are part of life. More than that, they’re fundamental as a method of teaching, with the purpose of guiding us beyond where we currently are. They serve as incentives to overcome, in the never-ending search for solutions, a vital movement for discovering personal gifts, talents, and capabilities still unknown”. He paused deliberately to allow me to follow his reasoning and continued, “However, problems have nothing to do with worries.”
How could that be? I protested, surprised at the absurdity of his argument.
As if he had anticipated the objection, Loureiro curled his lips into a smile and explained, “If worries steal joy and are inseparable from problems, which are valuable companions because of the evolutionary perspective they offer, then joy would be nothing more than a fictional idea created by poets, novelists, and philosophers. Joy is real, tangible, and can even be constant and uninterrupted, since it’s a valuable attribute achieved by those capable of finding the good side of all things.”
Just another beautiful theory that doesn’t work in practice, I objected. Lack of money, losing a job, serious illness, sudden and unwanted separations, these were just a few examples of problems that act as true thieves of joy. There’s nothing good about living through moments like that. The cobbler furrowed his brow and heightened the seriousness of the conversation. “No one wishes to be ambushed by unpleasant situations. However, no one attends school just to play. Challenges are essential and are distributed according to the lessons relevant to each student. Everything that happens to us is for our own good. Not for the ego, but for the soul. The eternal identity. I’ve met people who, even with little money, became prosperous by understanding that, materially speaking, the basics are enough for happiness. I’ve known others who, despite having lots of money, remained poor because they never had enough to satisfy them. I’ve seen people reinvent themselves after losing a job, going where they never imagined they could. I’ve met others who never recovered. I’ve seen the sick deeply enchanted with life after discovering the indescribable value of their own soul, even with their bodies compromised. I’ve also met people who never came to terms with their apparent misfortune. I’ve seen individuals who only managed to conquer themselves after the departure of those they considered the central pillar of their lives. I’ve met many who never accepted the injustice, believing themselves victims of circumstance. In short, similar lessons will yield different results depending on the understanding of the student.”
He looked at me as if he could pierce the armour I wear in the world and asked, “Are all your worries and annoyances of that magnitude, or do you routinely collect grievances stemming from the petty situations of everyday life?” I admitted that the vast majority of situations that stole my peace and diverted the focus, energy, and time necessary for my personal projects didn’t carry that kind of weight. I asked why he posed the question. Loureiro explained, “There are problems of varying levels. All are evolutionary confrontations that must be received and faced with serenity and clarity. None of them should be granted the power to steal the joy from our days. In truth, though they may initially cause some impact, we must be grateful for each challenge presented to us. As impulses to overcome, they exist with the purpose of making us different and better people by leading us to discover the beauty, magic, and enchantments of inner paths and places we do not yet know”. He took another sip of coffee and continued, “Great emotional exhaustion usually stems from the accumulation of trivial daily annoyances. Small irritations that pile up over time, so many and so petty that they fade from memory, yet leave traces of emotional dirt that clog the mind and pollute the heart. It’s a behavioural addiction typical of immaturity. I’m not referring to chronological age, but to the numbing of the soul caused by an ego incapable of understanding, accepting, and living the deeper meaning of life. Immaturity is tied to pride, vanity, jealousy, greed, and all the other personal shadows that generate dissatisfaction, misunderstanding, and conflict”. He paused again before reflecting, “I’m referring, for example, to small annoyances caused by the rude way someone speaks to us, when people don’t do things the way we’d like, or when we suffer an unexpected reaction from a loved one, among countless other everyday situations. In short, we generate internal conflict, be it sadness or irritation, whenever an event escapes our sphere of predictability, desire, or what we consider reasonable.” He shrugged and warned, “Things like this happen every day. It’s necessary to understand the size they take on inside us and the attention we give them. When maturity is present, these occurrences become valuable exercises in patience, tolerance, and respect, essential ways of loving. Life will flow with lightness and grace. Otherwise, we become collectors of grievances. The internal paths of understanding get clogged with excess filth and trivialities. There will be delay and loss, or even stagnation. Without intrinsic movement, there is no extrinsic movement. Only repetitive actions marked by lack of understanding and void of any evolutionary aspect. Life becomes boring and heavy.” He poured more coffee into our mugs and concluded, “If everything that happens to us is for our good, then it becomes necessary to find the hidden door through which we can move forward in every situation: to go beyond who we are, awaken dormant virtues, and become different and better people. Otherwise, the opportunity will be wasted and another piece will be added to the collection of annoyances.”
I asked whether it wasn’t an act of self-respect to avoid tolerating abuse in our relationships. The cobbler drummed his fingers on the wooden counter, as he did whenever I tried to change the subject, and smiled. I argued that the issue of respect was relevant and fundamental to relationships, the primary cause of all grievances. Loureiro didn’t shy away from addressing the topic: “Relationships without respect are abusive. However, respect speaks more to balance and inner gentleness than to virile and rude confrontation. Avoid evil with simplicity. Say no to it without hesitation. Without any need for conflict, distance yourself from all complicity, alignment, and affinity. Gentleness is stronger than brutality. Others’ imbalances and misunderstandings should remain outside. Help where you can, offer a kind word, but don’t get lost in the madness of trying to convince. Contrary to what people believe, respect is not built in confrontation or retaliation. It’s an internal attitude of dignity, understanding, love, and peace. It has little to do with other people’s behaviour. Respect speaks to and translates the way I move within myself and in the world. In this way, nothing anyone does will have the power to affect or stop me. Being on another vibrational frequency, sunbeams pass through water without getting wet.”
The cobbler’s words reverberated in my consciousness like an urgent call for change. Most hours of the day, my thoughts were trapped in small annoyances or in the projection of problems that never actually occurred. Even though I didn’t want them to, these ideas seemed to dominate me, I said to Loureiro. He noted, “And they do. And they will continue until you’re able to react. We are prisoners of dense and recurring thoughts that we cannot disperse. It is necessary to re-educate the mind if you want to know true freedom and take possession of yourself.” I asked where these bothersome thoughts came from. The cobbler explained, “In the psychosphere there are countless energetic fields composed of beliefs, desires, habits, relationship models, patterns of thinking and feeling that link to the individual according to their vibrational affinity. By atavism, we’ve been conditioned to ideas of suffering, conflict, subjugation, and fear. Not surprisingly, despair, anxiety, conflict, and depression have become such intimate companions that they’re accepted as inevitable in modern life. These are ailments as old as the reluctance toward self-discovery and consequent self-transformation. The healing of the soul is the genuine journey toward freedom and peace. It’s essential to change the way you look at things, your desires, your habits, your pleasures, your interests, and to find new sources for thinking and feeling. An authentic inner reconstruction, without lies, delusions, or disguises. Not a change of words, but of attitudes, whose roots lie in how we think and feel. Switch the lenses of your gaze to find the good side in every situation, replace competition with collaboration, even if it’s a one-sided act with no partner. No one defeats anyone else; each defeats themselves or will never know true victory. It doesn’t matter how others act, what matters is the good that you do. Change your routine, add tasks and chores that prioritize the pleasures of the soul. Make someone smile. Every day, help illuminate the day of someone lost in their own darkness. Do it in a way never tried before; seek within yourself something you don’t yet know. Help without dominating, guide without influencing, love without demanding. Offer the best, accept everyone as they are. Trust yourself, forgive, and move on. Never insist that others accompany you. Each walks according to their own route, rhythm, and pace. Everything your hand touches will dissolve along the road of time. Only the good or the harm you do is truly yours; strive to ensure your baggage contains more of the former and less of the latter. Everything else is unecessary.”
The day was breaking. Loureiro decided to buy some croissants to go with another round of coffee. He told me to wait in the workshop. I needed to think. Silence and stillness are essential to inner encounters. The cobbler took longer than usual to fetch the pastries from the bakery on the corner. He wanted me to reassess the real foundations of my worries at that moment. Whether they had real reasons or were invented by a mind accustomed to feeding on its own suffering. The mind molds to the mold of thinking. Unhealthy habits of thinking and feeling become addictions. Without realizing it, we end up as collectors of annoyances. Reality becomes tense, murky, and bitter. There’s an urgent and vital need to break the mold to free the mind and recreate our way of thinking.
I mentioned this when Loureiro returned. The cobbler agreed and added, “Yes, free-thinking is much more than just thinking. It’s about breaking with the obsolete model we’ve gotten used to for building ideas and feeding emotions. There’s no better definition for the expression regenerate, recreate, or reinvent oneself.” Then he placed the croissants on the wooden counter and, before preparing another pot of coffee, said, “Live by your own attitudes, never let yourself be imprisoned by the behaviour of others.” From the small kitchen at the back of the workshop, he spoke a little louder so I could hear him: “The problem is when we don’t properly address the small annoyances that generate feelings of injustice, ingratitude, or lack of consideration. They must be dissolved quickly. When these seeds take root in the heart, grievances sprout. The collection changes category.” I knew what he meant. Authentic forgiveness is a complex matter unless it’s approached with sincerity (to set aside the ego’s interests in favour of the soul’s values), courage (to face the monsters of pride and vanity that will try to stop it), self-respect (forgiveness is an act of reclaiming one’s dignity by dissolving harm), and, above all, simplicity (to dismantle the comfort of lies and illusions that prevent the necessary inner shifts and consequent outer movements). I stayed quiet. Authentic forgiveness is a difficult confrontation. The craftsman returned with the fresh pot of coffee, placed it on the wooden counter, and fixed his gaze on mine as if he knew how hard it was for me to process many experiences, some old, others recent, that kept me locked in the prison of incomprehension. I confessed that I doubted whether the people who hurt me deserved to be forgiven, especially since they hadn’t even shown any remorse for what they did. The craftsman noted, “With humility and out of honesty, it’s essential to admit that we all need someone’s forgiveness for acts we’ve committed. Without exception. Forgiveness is fundamental so we don’t stay bogged down in imperfection, ours or others’. It’s an act of love from life and for life. Forgiveness grants the power of freedom and peace to the one who was hurt. An act of self-liberation and self-pacification. It depends in no way on the offender. Nor could it. Forgiveness doesn’t validate or approve the wrong, but breaks the chains that keep us from moving forward. Every collector of grievances is a prisoner of themselves.”
We ate the croissants without saying a word. They were delicious. They had a different taste. A taste of life renewing itself, typical of the moment we find the way out of the labyrinth that prevents the essential encounter, the one each person must have with themselves when they realize what must be done to rebuild in a way that allows walking freely, lightly, and gently. With the last mug of coffee empty, I thanked him for the conversation and took my leave. We shared a tight hug, and I set off for another period of studies at the monastery. I carried in my bag important material for reflection and the commitment to rid myself of many of my collections. The rain had stopped, it was no longer so cold. The morning was sunny.
Translated by Cazmilian Zórdic.
