I live in a South American country called Venezuela. Surely many of you will have read and heard that we are an oil country with the largest oil reserves in the world, you will also have read about the serious political, social and economic crisis we are going through since the year 2000 and very specifically, what we had to live through between the years 2016 and 2018, when superinflation and the devaluation of our currency turned us into one of the poorest countries in the region, but also one of the most battle-hardened. Because one thing is to HAVE and another is to BE.

Before that date, I do not remember having problems to buy clothes, to travel, much less to buy food, but it was in these years that our history was split in two: the time when we had everything in hand and when we began to value every grain of rice we put in our mouths.

At that time Venezuelans had to reinvent the word resolver: baking soda or lemon was used as toothpaste and deodorant, detergent was used for washing, washing dishes, but also as shampoo for hair. A package of milk was a luxury and if we managed to buy it, we used it with a sense of scarcity. Every coin that fell into our hands was used for what was essential and important: we prioritized the truly indispensable, leaving aside the trivial and superfluous.

I don't know how many times I cried because if I had so many things, I felt I had nothing. But one day I realized that having hit rock bottom forced me to look for tools to get to the surface. I understood that I didn't have to have a closet full of clothes, but to have useful clothes; I didn't have to buy a lot of food, if not enough to take care of myself and my loved ones. I also learned to see the person next to me, across the street, and to share and help others.

It is said that human beings have two orientations: To Be or To Have. I learned that I am not what I am because of what I have, be it a lot or a little. I lost many material things in those years of crisis, but I never lost what I am, my essence. With only one pair of shoes, one pair of pants and one flannel I kept my dignity intact, my energy, my joy, my creativity and my hope in the face of adversity.

There are forms of life that expire in time, that give way to other more mature, more real forms. The life I had was one of squandering; those years taught me several lessons, but the one I apply the most today is that I do not need many things to be well: there are more fundamental things that are not material things. At that time I got rid of a lot: beliefs, habits, goods. I had to start from scratch, but without much, and that's okay, because it was less weight. Sometimes hitting rock bottom makes us not to be the same: it makes us to be different and better.