Before I tell you why I was feeling that way—when I went for a walk at 5:30 in the morning, with just enough light to see, no noise, and no one around—when I stood near the crashing waves, in front of the freezing, deep water of the North Sea, and my dog kept looking back at me, kindly asking with his eyes, Are you going to keep walking, or is this going to be it? Before I tell you how I went from that moment to writing this article, let me ask if you agree with the following:

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Life is built through decisions.

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A good life is built on good decisions.

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A bad life is built on bad decisions.

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Then, decisions are important, aren’t they? We all want to have a good life—and, in fact, we can. The only thing we need to do is make better decisions. But how do we do that? Well, by learning. Learning what? To make better decisions. And who’s going to teach us that? Life. How so? It turns out that every single moment, we’ve the opportunity to make a good decision instead of a bad one, based on what we’ve learned from all our past experiences. And by past experiences, I mean everything—from your family to your teachers, your friends, the articles you’ve read, the songs you’ve listened to, the shows you’ve seen, the feelings you’ve felt, the thoughts you’ve thought, and so on. In other words, everything that has happened to you in your life.

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So it all comes down to deciding? Indeed.

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And all we need to do is learn to decide well? Yes.

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And life is going to teach us that? Aja.

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Nah, I don’t buy that.

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Ok, let’s try another way:

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A couple of weeks ago, I made a trip to London. I was invited to the opening night of an exhibition at the National Gallery. It was a special occasion—the first time a Mexican painter (or even a Latin American) was shown there. I’m Mexican, and a philosopher specialised in art, so it made sense. Plus, I’m friends with the curator. Anyway, I had a +1. My girlfriend was abroad working, so I invited a long-time-no-see friend from college. Turns out, she’s an art lawyer—which I didn’t know—but her Instagram account is too artsy not to catch that she was active in the art world, so it made sense to invite her. We met for a drink at the Magritte Bar in Mayfair. Two Negronis. We connected immediately. Off we went to the exhibition, then out for a late-night dinner at Balthazar, followed by brunch at Colbert the next day. My flight back home was in the afternoon. As we were about to say goodbye, she confessed something that, in some way, I knew she would say. Turns out, I felt the same.

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I arrived home, and everything was fine. It was Saturday. Sunday morning, we were texting eagerly—until the afternoon, when she went completely silent. I typed, and there was no reply. But then again, it’s normal for people to disconnect, so I took it lightly.

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The next day, I woke up, did my usual morning routine before checking my phone (which I do around 10 a.m.). I was sure she’d written back by then. Guess what—she hadn’t. I went on with my day, had lunch, and headed to university. I had a discussion with fellow philosophers about the possibility of categorising food as art. My argument was in favour, but I offered a distinction between what types of food we can and cannot call art. It was very straightforward: Michelin-type restaurants offered something closer to what we can call art in a way that homemade food didn’t. I was attacked for holding such a position—under the argument that I’m biased by a white-male canon of chefs, etc. The discussion got heated and I wasn’t able to defend myself the way I would’ve liked.

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I usually go to university for just a few hours; I prefer to work on my research at home—after all, the coffee is better. But before heading back, I stopped by the bookshop. I wanted to buy a biography of Dostoevsky I’d had my eyes on for a while. I came to the counter to ask for it, and while the guy looked it up in the system, I was lost in thought, wondering how many books in Spanish they had. No real purpose behind the question, just random thoughts. I had my hand on top of a hardcover book and started tapping my fingers on it without even realising. Suddenly, the guy turned to me and shouted, “The more you make that sound, the slower I’ll go—I can promise you that!” Without noticing, I was making that classic impatient tap. The guy thought I was rushing him when, in fact, I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I’d forgotten he was even searching for my book. Of course, I stopped immediately. He found it, brought it over, I paid, and left.

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I arrived home and began to slow down. Cooked dinner around 7 p.m., talked to my girlfriend for a bit to see how she was doing on the other side of the world, and then turned off my phone. I spent the rest of the evening reading and studying by the firepit. At 9:30 p.m., I went to bed.

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Next morning, I woke up early as usual. I spent about half an hour doing Ayurvedic body cleansing, then meditated for another 30 minutes or so. At 5:30, I headed out with my dog for our morning walk. We always go straight to the coast, down the path that runs between the seashore and the open fields. Massive rocks burst out of the earth to be showered by the white foam of the waves. It’s one of my happy places—probably the happiest. I fall in love with nature every day as the day breaks. Birds sing, and the crisp, chilling air of the North clears my thoughts and my whole being. I give thanks to God for being alive and start the day in the spirit of it being the best. But this time it was different.

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I was feeling sad, mad, frustrated, and uncomfortable. The usual lightness was missing. The high spirits and purity of the morning weren’t there. I felt dirty. Heavy. Intolerant. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened that morning, and yet I felt off. So I concluded the feeling had to do with the day before. That’s when the process of reflection started. I made recount, and found the following:

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First off, I realised I felt rejected when my friend never wrote back. I’d been so excited to talk to her that, when she didn’t reply, I started telling myself it was because I’d been too intense. That I’d talked too much. That she was probably regretting saying she’d found in me a true friend—one of those rare ones you just know will last forever. Which was crushing, because I’d felt exactly the same. My two best friends live far away. Imagine finding a new one close to home, only to lose her in less than two days. 

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Now, in reality, this event didn’t manifest as something huge. It registered subconsciously. I honestly thought I’d forgotten about it. But the rejection I felt on Monday morning gave a blow to my confidence—without me noticing. Later that day came the debate, and because I wasn’t feeling as confident, I didn’t defend my position as I usually would. Another blow. Then the bookshop incident—misunderstood, humiliated, awkward. A third blow. I went home, and with hand on heart, I can say I felt perfectly calm. I read. I slept in peace. But I hadn’t noticed how the accumulation of these small moments had gone unresolved.

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So this morning, I woke up feeling down—and I wondered why…

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As I kept walking, my dog kept looking back to see if we were stopping at Point A, where we do in winter when it’s too dark to continue, or if we were going to Point B, which we do in spring, summer, and part of autumn—when the light arrives earlier. The difference is nearly double, so you can imagine the excitement on his face when we crossed Point A.

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I thought about the three emotionally charged events and tried to figure out how to make the heaviness go away. I knew they were the cause, but you can’t just forget these things. Whoever tells you that is lying. So I tried something we’ve all heard before but rarely do: I looked for the hidden lesson. And this is what I found:

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Next time I meet a potential best friend, I’ll be a little less intense—but still true to myself. If it’s meant to be, it will be. Meeting her showed me something important: that the more I work on myself, and the more I commit to the things I love, the more likely I am to attract like-minded people—and that excites me. She was proof of that. From the debate, I realised I need to improve my public speaking—especially as a non-native English speaker. The clearer I am, the more confidence I’ll build, and the better philosopher I’ll become. From the bookshop, I learned to be humble, and to speak up—to explain myself instead of pretending nothing happened. To face confrontation with calm, rather than avoid it altogether.

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From the three experiences together, I learned that even when I think I’ve moved on, small things can build up. You might find yourself upset because a friend spoke harshly to you—at least that’s what you think. But maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe it was your partner’s comment at breakfast that stung a little. Or maybe it really started the night before, with something your mum said that hurt. If you don’t pause to process those moments, they stack up. The weight grows quietly.

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Now imagine adding that to a deeper wound—something from ten years ago that was never addressed, never reprogrammed. Suddenly, you’re walking around angry, and you can’t quite explain why.  I suppose that’s what therapy is for: to help trace the thread back to its origin. To find the real source, so you can finally let it go.

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But here’s the point: the moment I realised I had learned, something shifted. I once heard Tony Robbins say (roughly): You can’t feel anger, fear, or worry at the same time as gratitude. One cancels the other. When you’re grateful, the bad disappears. When the bad is present, there’s no room for grace.

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And that was the answer to the puzzle: reprogramming.

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All those small experiences from the day before had built up and carried emotional weight. But I didn’t want to carry them forward. And I couldn’t just forget them either. So instead, I transformed them. I reprogrammed them. I took those same memories and injected a different emotion into them—a positive one.

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How?

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Well, let’s go back to the start: life is built on decisions. The better your decisions, the better your life. And how do you make better decisions? By learning—from everything that’s happened to you, everything you’ve felt, thought, seen, or been told. Every experience is raw material for learning. That’s how you sharpen your judgement and shape your next choice.

So if I can see yesterday’s experiences not as failures or frustrations, but as lessons—real, valuable lessons—then I’m already on a better path. I’m now more prepared to handle what comes next. I’m steadier, clearer, more in tune with what matters.

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Because I believe that learning is the way toward the best possible life, I was genuinely grateful for those experiences. And when that gratitude kicked in, the emotional charge tied to them changed. Instantly. It always does. You can’t feel gratitude and bitterness at the same time. When one enters, the other disappears. That’s when the shift happens. That’s how I reprogrammed them—not by pretending they didn’t happen, but by truly understanding what they were for. I regained peace. And I moved on—not pretended, but truly moved on.

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In that moment, everything clicked. Here’s how it unfolded:

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Step one: I realised something was off, and I asked myself—why?

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Step two: I traced it back to the moments that had hurt.

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Step three: I searched for the lesson inside each one.

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Step four: Once I found the lesson, the emotional charge shifted.

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Step five: I felt gratitude and was able to let go. 

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By then, we had reached Point B. The morning was beautiful. The sun was rising. Birds were singing. My dog was as happy as ever. And so was I. What started off wrong had turned into one of the best days. I’d learned how to reprogram myself. Maybe one day, there won’t be any bad days at all. And if you were wondering—yes, I was exaggerating the situations. My friend wrote back that same day, with a perfectly good explanation. A colleague from the debate later told me he saw real potential in my argument and hadn’t noticed any drop in my confidence. And the guy from the bookshop? He’ll probably never remember the moment. But that’s how we humans are sometimes—we exaggerate, build far-fetched theories, misread things, and let it all affect us. 

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Yes, the problem can start in our heads. But beautifully, it can be solved there as well. Reprogramming is peaceful satisfaction.